
Class__ E I^S_^!L_ 
Book Jl^JxB 



THE JAPANESE INVASION 



THE JAPANESE 
INVASION 



A Study in the Psychology of 
Inter-Racial Contacts 



BY 

JESSE FREDERICK STEINER, Ph.D. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

ROBERT E. PARK 

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 




CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG & CO. 

1917 



■ S3 52 



Copyright 

A. a McCLUEG & CO. 

1917 



Published February, 1917 



7 



W. p. MALL PHINTINC COMPANY, CHICAGO 



PREFACE 

THOUGHTFUL students of our immigration prob- 
lem are more and more turning their attention to 
the immigrant invasion from the Orient, now small in 
volume but impelled by powerful forces that may some 
day be beyond our control. The overwhelming num- 
bers of the Asiatics, the social and economic discontent 
of the people, and the aggressive nationalism of the 
Japanese are danger signals that are arousing us from 
our complacent feelings of security. Vast possibilities 
for both good and evil are bound up in the rapidly 
developing Orient. It is of the highest importance that 
our Government work out an Oriental policy based 
upon a thorough understanding of the Far Eastern 
situation and designed to conserve the best interests of 
all concerned. 

This book is an attempt to study one phase of this 
Oriental problem — the racial aspects of the Japanese 
immigration. Its interest is psychological rather than 
historical or economic. Emphasis is laid on the chang- 
ing mental attitudes of the Japanese immigrants and on 
their reaction to the race prejudice they are compelled 
to face. 

The writer tries to show that the problem is deeper 
than that of social assimilation. The fundamental dif- 
ficulty is a difference of color and physical character- 



vi Preface 

istics so marked that the Japanese cannot merge them- 
selves unnoticed into American life. This makes inevi- 
table the establishment of a color line between the East 
and the West, no less real than that between the White 
and the Black. 

Nothing is gained by ignoring the racial aspects of 
the question as is now the tendency in some quarters. A 
frank statement of facts is one step toward a better 
mutual understanding and lays the basis for a more sat- 
isfactory solution of the Oriental immigration problem. 

The author's first interest in this problem arose dur- 
ing his seven years' residence in Japan as a teacher in a 
mission college in Sendai. Without the background 
gained by this long contact with the Japanese people, 
this study could not have been carried out. 

Among the many friends, both Japanese and Ameri- 
can, who have furnished data of various kinds, special 
mention should be made of Dr. William G. Seiple, of 
Sendai, Japan, who has been at great pains to keep the 
author in close touch with public opinion in Japan. The 
author wishes especially to acknowledge his great in- 
debtedness to Dr. Robert E. Park, of the University of 
Chicago, under whose patient and stimulating super- 
vision this book was written. 

J. F. Steiner 

Chicago, January, i^iy 



INTRODUCTION 

THERE is a conviction, widespread in America at 
the present time, that one of the most fruitful 
sources of international wars are racial prejudice and 
national egotism. This conviction is the nerve of much 
present day pacifism. It has been the inspiration of 
such unofficial diplomacy, for example, as that of the 
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in its effort 
to bring about a better understanding between the Jap- 
anese and America. This book is an attempt to study 
this phenomenon of race prejudice and national ego- 
tism, so far as it reveals itself in the relations of the 
Japanese and the Americans in this country, and to 
estimate the role it is likely to play in the future rela- 
tions of the two countries. 

So far as I know, an investigation of precisely this 
nature has not hitherto been made. One reason for 
this is, perhaps, that not until very recent times did the 
problem present itself in precisely this form. So long 
as the nations lived in practical isolation, carrying on 
their intercourse through the medium of professional 
diplomats, and knowing each other mainly through 
the products they exchanged, census reports, and the 
discreet observations of polite travellers, racial preju- 
dice did not disturb international relations. With the 
extension of international commerce, the increase of 

vii 



viii Introduction 



immigration, and the interpenetration of peoples, the 
scene changes. The railway, the steamship, and the 
telegraph are rapidly mobilizing the peoples of the 
earth. The nations are coming out of their isolation, 
and distances which separated the different races are 
rapidly giving way before the extension of communi- 
cation. 

The same human motives, which have led men to 
spread a network of trade-communication over the 
whole earth, in order to bring about an exchange of 
commodities, are now bringing about a new distribu- 
tion of populations. When these populations become 
as mobile as the commodities of commerce there will 
be practically no limits — except those artificial barriers, 
like the customs and immigration restrictions, main- 
tained by individual states — to a world wide economic 
and personal competition. Furthermore, when the 
natural barriers are broken down, artificial barriers 
will be maintained with increasing difficulty. 

Some conception of the extent of the changes which 
are taking place in the world under the influence of 
these forces may be gathered from the fact that in 
1870 the cost of transporting a bushel of grain in 
Europe was so great as to prohibit its sale beyond a 
radius of two hundred miles from a primary market. 
By 1883 the importation of grains from the virgin 
soil of the Western prairies in the United States had 
brought about an agricultural crisis in every country 
in Western Europe. 

One may illustrate, but it is scarcely possible to esti- 



Introduction ix 



mate the economic changes which have been brought 
about by the enormous increase in ocean transporta- 
tion. In 1840 the first Cunard liner, of 740 horse- 
power with a speed of 8.5 knots per hour, was 
launched. In 1907, when the Lusitania was built, 
ocean-going vessels had attained a speed of 25 knots 
an hour and were drawn by engines of 70,000 horse- 
power. 

It is difficult to estimate the economic changes which 
have been brought about by the changes in ocean trans- 
portation represented by these figures. It is still less 
possible to predict the political effects of the steadily 
increasing mobility of the peoples of the earth. At 
the present time this mobility has already reached a 
point at which it is often easier and cheaper to trans- 
port the world's population to the sources of raw mate- 
rials than to carry the world's manufactures to the 
established seats of population. 

With the progressive rapidity, ease, and security of 
transportation, and the increase in communication, 
there follows an increasing detachment of the popu- 
lation from the soil, and a concurrent concentration in 
great cities. These cities, in time, become the centers 
of vast numbers of uprooted individuals, casual and 
seasonal laborers, tenement and apartment house 
dwellers, sophisticated and emancipated urbanites, who 
are bound together neither by local attachment nor by 
ties of family, clan, religion, or nationality. Under 
such conditions it is reasonable to expect that the same 
economic motive which leads every trader to sell in the 



Introduction 



highest market and to buy in the lowest will steadily 
increase and intensify the tendency, which has already 
reached enormous proportions of the population in 
overcrowded regions, with diminished resources, to 
seek their fortunes, either permanently or temporarily, 
in the new countries of undeveloped resources. 

Already the extension of commerce and the increase 
of immigration have brought about an international 
and interracial situation that has strained the inherited 
political order of the United States. It is this same 
expansive movement of population and of commerce, 
together with the racial and national rivalries that have 
sprung from them, which first destroyed the traditional 
scheme of international control which rested on it. 
Whatever may have been the immediate causes of the 
world war, the more remote sources of the conflict 
must undoubtedly be sought in the great cosmic forces 
which have broken down the barriers which formerly 
separated the races and nationalities of the world, and 
forced them into new intimacies and new forms of 
competition, rivalry, and conflict. 

Since 1870 the conditions which I have attempted 
to sketch have steadily forced upon America and the 
nations of Europe the problem of assimilating their 
heterogeneous populations. What we call the race 
problem is an incident of this process of assimilation, 
and is an evidence of its failure. 

The present volume touches but does not deal with 
the general situation which I have briefly sketched. It 
is, as its title suggests, a study in "racial contacts," and 



Introduction xi 



is an attempt to distinguish and trace to their sources 
the attitudes and the sentiments — that is to say, mutual 
prejudices — which have been and still are a source of 
mutual irritation and misunderstanding between the 
Japanese and American peoples. 

Fundamentally, prejudice against the Japanese in the 
United States is merely the prejudice which attaches 
to every alien and immigrant people. The immigrant 
from Europe, like the immigrant from Asia, comes to 
this country because he finds here a freedom of indi- 
vidual action and an economic opportunity which he 
did not find at home. It is an instance of the general 
tendency of populations to move from an area of rela- 
tively closed to one of relatively open resources. The 
movement is as inevitable and, in the long run, as re- 
sistless as that which draws water from its mountain 
sources to the sea. It is one way of redressing the 
economic balance and bringing about an economic 
equilibrium. 

The very circumstances under which this modern 
movement of population has arisen implies then that 
the standard of living, if not the cultural level, of the 
immigrant is lower than that of the native population. 
The consequence is that immigration brings with it a 
new and disturbing form of competition, the competi- 
tion, namely, of peoples of a lower and of a higher 
standard of living. The effect of this competition, 
where it is free and unrestricted, is either to lower the 
living standards of the native population; to expel 
them from the vocations in which the immigrants are 



xii Introduction 



able or permitted to compete; or what may, perhaps, 
be regarded as a more sinister consequence, to induce 
such a restriction of the birth rate of the native popu- 
lation as to insure its ultimate extinction. The latter 
is, in fact, what seems to be happening in the New 
England manufacturing towns where the birth rate 
in the native population for some years past has fallen 
below the death rate, so that the native stock has long 
since ceased to reproduce itself. The foreign peoples, 
on the other hand, are rapidly replacing the native 
stocks, not merely by the influence of new immigra- 
tion but because of a relatively high excess of births 
over deaths. 

It has been assumed that the prejudice which blinds 
the people of one race to the virtues of another, and 
leads them to exaggerate that other's faults, is in the 
nature of a misunderstanding which further knowledge 
will dispel. This is so far from true that it would 
be more exact to say that our racial misunderstandings 
are merely the expression of our racial antipathies. 
Behind these antipathies are deep-seated, vital, and in- 
stinctive impulses. These antipathies represent col- 
lision of invisible forces, the clash of interests, dimly 
felt but not yet clearly perceived. They are present in 
every situation where the fundamental interests of 
races and peoples are not yet regulated by some law, 
custom, or any other modus vivendi which commands 
the assent and the mutual support of both parties. We 
hate people because we fear them; because our inter- 
ests, as we understand them at anv rate, run counter 



Introduction xiii 



to theirs. On the other hand, good will is founded in 
the long run upon cooperation. The extension of our 
socalled altruistic sentiments is made possible only by 
the organization of our otherwise conflicting interests 
and by the extension of the machinery of cooperation 
and social control. 

Race prejudice may be regarded as a spontaneous, 
more or less instinctive defense-reaction, the practical 
effect of which is to restrict free competition between 
races. Its importance as a social function is due to 
the fact that free competition, particularly between 
people with different standards of living, seems to be, 
if not the original source, at least the stimulus to which 
race prejudice is the response. 

From this point of view we may regard caste, or 
even slavery, as one of those accommodations through 
which the race problem found a natural solution. Caste, 
by relegating the subject race to an inferior status, 
gives to each race at any rate a monopoly of its own 
tasks. When this status is accepted by the subject peo- 
ple, as is the case where the caste or slavery systems 
become fully established, racial competition ceases and 
racial animosity tends to disappear. That is the ex- 
planation of the intimate and friendly relations which 
so often existed in slavery between master and serv- 
ant. It is for this reason that we hear it said today 
that "the Negro is all right in his place." In his place 
he is a convenience and not a competitor. Each race 
being in its place, no obstacle to racial cooperation 
exists. 



xiv Introduction 



The fact that race prejudice is due to, or is in some 
sense dependent upon, race competition is further 
manifest by a fact which Mr. Steiner has emphasized, 
namely, that prejudice against the Japanese is nowhere 
uniform throughout the United States. It is only 
where Japanese are present in sufficient numbers to 
actually disturb the economic status of the white popu- 
lation that prejudice has manifested itself to such a 
degree as to demand serious consideration. It is an 
interesting fact, also, that prejudice against the Jap- 
anese is now more intense than it is against any other 
oriental people. The reason for this, as Mr. Steiner 
has pointed out, is that the Japanese are more aggres- 
sive, more disposed to test the sincerity of that state- 
ment of the Declaration of Independence which de- 
clares that all men are equally entitled to ''life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness" — a statement, by the 
way, which is merely a forensic assertion of the laissez- 
faire doctrine of free and unrestricted competition as 
applied to the relations of individual men. 

The Japanese, the Chinese, they too would be all 
right in their place, no doubt. That place, if they find 
it, will be one in which they do not greatly intensify 
and so embitter the struggle for existence of the white 
man. The difficulty is that the Japanese is still less 
disposed than the Negro or the Chinese to submit to 
the regulations of a caste system and to stay in his 
place. The Japanese are an organized and morally 
efficient nation. They have the national pride and 
the national egotism which rests on the consciousness 



Introduction xv 



of this efficiency. In fact it is not too much to say 
that national egotism, if one pleases to call it such, 
is essential to national efficiency, just as a certain 
irascibility of temper seems to be essential to a good 
fighter. 

Another difficulty is that caste and the limitation of 
free competition is economically unsound, even though 
it be politically desirable. A national policy of national 
efficiency demands that every individual have not 
merely the opportunity but the preparation necessary 
to perform that particular service for the community 
for which his natural disposition and aptitude fit him, 
irrespective of race or "previous condition." 

Finally, caste and the limitation of economic oppor- 
tunity is contrary, if not to our traditions, at least to 
our political principles. That means that there will 
always be an active minority opposed on grounds of 
political sentiment to any settlement based on the caste 
system as applied to either the black or the brown man. 
This minority will be small in parts of the country im- 
mediately adversely affected by the competition of the 
invading race. It will be larger in regions which are 
not greatly affected. It will be increased if immigra- 
tion is so rapid as to make the competition more acute. 
We must look to other measures for the solution of 
the Japanese problem, if it should prove true, as seems 
probable, that we are not able or, for various reasons, 
do not care to hold back permanently the rising tide 
of the oriental invasion. 

I have said that fundamentally and in principle preju- 



xvi Introduction 



dice against the Japanese in America today was iden- 
tical with the prejudice which attaches to any immi- 
grant people. There is, as Mr. Steiner has pointed out, 
a difference. This is due to the existence in the human 
mind of a mechanism by which we inevitably and auto- 
matically classify every individual human being we 
meet. When a race bears an external mark by which 
every individual member of it can infallibly be identi- 
fied, that race is by that fact set apart and segregated. 
Japanese, Chinese, and Negroes cannot move among 
us with the same freedom as the members of other 
races because they bear marks which identify them as 
members of their race. This fact isolates them. In 
the end, the effect of this isolation, both in its effects 
upon the Japanese themselves, and upon the human 
environment in which they live, is profound. Isolation 
is at once a cause and an effect of race prejudice. It 
is a vicious circle — isolation, prejudice; prejudice, iso- 
lation. Were there no other reasons which urge us to 
consider the case of the Japanese and the oriental peo- 
ples in a category different from that of the European 
immigrant, this fact, that he is bound to live in the 
American community a more or less isolated life, 
would impel us to do so. 

I have called what I have here written an introduc- 
tion. It is perhaps less an introduction than an inter- 
pretation. As such, however, it may serve its purpose, 
which has been to add, if possible, something to the 
significance of this study by a review of the larger 
situation, in which its special problem lies. 



Introduction xvii 



In conclusion, I may perhaps say in a word what 
seems to me the practical bearing of Mr. Steiner's 
book. Race prejudice is a mechanism of the group 
mind which acts reflexly and automatically in response 
to its proper stimulus. That stimulus seems to be, in 
the cases where I have met it, unrestricted competition 
of peoples with different standards of living. Racial 
animosities and the socalled racial misunderstandings 
that grow out of them cannot be explained or argued 
away. They can only be affected when there has been 
a readjustment of relations and an organization of 
interests in such a way as to bring about a larger meas- 
ure of cooperation and a less amount of friction and 
conflict. This demands something more than a diplo- 
macy of kind words. It demands a national policy 
based on an unflinching examination of the facts. 

Robert E. Park. 
The University of Chicago, 
January 25, i^iy 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Our First Acquaintance with the Japanese i 

II The Japanese Attitude Toward the West . i6 

III The Closing of the Open Door .... 34 

IV The Problem from the Japanese Viewpoint 54 
V The Japanese "Menace" 68 

VI The Isolation of Japanese in America . . 93 

VII The Reaction of the Japanese to American 

Economic Conditions 1 12 

VIII Organization and Solidarity of Japanese 

Immigrants 130 

IX The Problem of Intermarriage .... 149 

X The Japanese in America as a Race Prob- 
lem 175 

XI The World Significance of Waking Asia . 195 

Bibliography 211 

Index 227 



CHAPTER I 

OUR FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE JAPANESE 

^T^HE first Japanese to set foot upon the American 
-*■ continent came to Mexico early in the seven- 
teenth century as guests of Spanish colonists who 
then were the only Europeans residing on the western 
coast of America. The same aggressiveness and 
organizing ability and capacity for leadership, which 
have been such prominent factors in the recent develop- 
ment of Japan, were also characteristic of the Japanese 
of that day. 

Under the leadership of ambitious rulers a Japanese 
mercantile fleet was organized and trade routes were 
established to such distant points as India and Java. 
Their three-masted, square-rigged vessels, very little 
smaller than those used by European sailors, were well 
adapted for long ocean voyages, and under the direc- 
tion of skilled Japanese navigators, became familiar 
objects in every far eastern port. Japanese colonists 
took advantage of this opportunity to go abroad in 
large numbers. Over 15,000 Japanese, it is said, were 
residing in the Philippines during the sixteenth century. 

The Japanese were quick to see the advantages of 
foreign trade so eagerly sought by the progressive 
nations of Europe, and were developing a policy of 

I 



The Japanese Invasion 



expansion that seemed destined to make them leaders 
of the Orient. Spanish vessels plying between Spain's 
far eastern possessions and Mexico were urged to call 
at the ports of Japan. Japanese sailors employed on 
these Spanish ships learned the route across the Pacific 
and brought back glowing reports of the New World. 
In 1610 and 161 3 two Japanese embassies proceeded 
in Spanish ships to Acapulco, Mexico, where they 
remained a few months studying the conditions of 
trade in New Spain. The desire of the Spaniards 
to promote friendly relations between the two countries 
led them to extend a cordial welcome to their visitors, 
who were given every opportunity for observation and 
travel.^ 

Whatever may have been the plans of the Japanese 
for securing a foothold on the American continent, 
they were destined not to be carried out, for soon after 
the return of these embassies to Japan the foreign 
policy of the country was so radically changed that 
further foreign intercourse became impossible. The 
desire of the Japanese rulers to profit by foreign trade 
was outweighed by their fear of foreign aggression. 
The Roman Catholic missionaries residing in Japan 
were no longer regarded as mere religious propagan- 
dists but as political agents of their home governments, 
whose real purpose was to undermine the loyalty of 
their converts.^ In the minds of the Japanese authori- 

1 Nuttall, Z., Earliest Historical Relations Between Mexico and 
Japan, Univ. of Calif. Publications of Arch. & Eth., iv, 1-47, 1906. 

2 Murdoch, J., A History of Japan During Century of Early 
Foreign Intercourse, Kobe, Japan, pp. 45-48. 



Our First Acquaintance 



ties, the safety of their country lay only in seclusion. 
To accomplish this end all foreigners were banished 
and Japanese subjects were forbidden to go abroad. 
In 1636 during the shogunate of Tokugawa lyemitsu 
all intercourse with Mexico was cut off and thus ended 
what might have been the beginning of Japanese 
expansion in the West. If it had not been for this 
change in Japan's foreign policy, aggressive Japanese 
traders and colonists might have explored our whole 
western coast and established settlements in California 
long before the arrival of the people of the white race. 
It is of course futile to discuss what might have been, 
but it takes no great stretch of the imagination to 
picture the changed conditions that would now prevail 
on our western coast if Japan had not lost her chance 
to gain the mastery of the Pacific in the seventeenth 
century.^ 

For more than two hundred years Japan maintained 
this policy of seclusion so rigidly that very few Japa- 
nese managed to get abroad. Occasionally, Japanese 
fishing junks, driven far out to sea by sudden storms, 
were carried by the Black Current across the Pacific 
and finally stranded on the western coast of America 
and its outlying islands, a fact which some writers 
have used to support the theory that the Japanese are 
the ancestors of the American Indians.^ 

As early as 1840, American vessels crossing the 

1 Kennan, George, " How Japan Lost Her Chance in the Pacific," 
the Outlook, June 27, 1914, pp. 488-93. 

2 Davis, H., "Japanese Wrecks in American Waters," the 
Overland Monthly, Sept., 1872, pp. 353-60. 



The Japanese Invasion 



Pacific rescued shipwrecked Japanese fishermen and 
brought them to America. One of the first of these 
rescued Japanese to stay for any length of time in 
America was Nakahama Manjiro, a boy of fifteen, 
who was taken to Fair Haven, Massachusetts, where 
he attended school for six years. Upon his return to 
Japan in 1849 he was treated harshly by the Japanese 
authorities because he had broken the laws which 
forbade any Japanese to go abroad. Fortunately he 
escaped severe punishment, and when Commodore 
Perry arrived in Japan in 1853, Nakahama acted as 
one of the interpreters and helped to convince the 
Japanese of the friendliness of America.^ 

1 Hawks, F. L., Narrative of the Expedition of Perry to Japan. 
D. Appleton & Co., p. 60. 

I. Nitobe. The Intercourse Between the United States and Japan, 
gives the following account of one of these Japanese fishermen: 

" Sentaro — better known by his American nickname, Sam 
Patch — 'was one of seventeen unfortunates who, while manning 
a junk, were blown out to sea, rescued by an American vessel and 
taken to San Francisco. Sam Patch accompanied the Perry squad- 
ron. All the while they sailed, he was apprehending that some ill 
would befall his neck and was constantly repeating 'shimpai, 
shimpai ' (Japanese word for troubled in mind), showing with 
what fear and trembling he came once more to take a glance at 
his native land. He was asked by the Japanese officials to stay in 
the country and engage in building ' black ships ' ; but nothing 
could free him of his * shimpai ' which became almost a part of 
his constitution insomuch as it gave him the sobriquet of * Sam 
Patch.' He was placed under the care of Mr. J. Goble, who took 
him to Hamilton, New York, where the poor heathen was dubbed 
a Christian by being dipped into water. In i860, when Goble came 
to Japan as a missionary, he took Sam with him ; but at that time 
when a scrappy knowledge of English might be turned to very 
good account, Sam lacked Yankee pluck and he lived and died a 
poor house servant." (p. 157.) 



Our First Acquaintance 



It was not, however, until i860 that America re- 
ceived an important visit from the Japanese. In that 
year a special embassy was sent to Washington by the 
Japanese government to exchange the ratifications of 
the treaty of 1858. Through the efforts of our repre- 
sentative in Japan, Townsend Harris, the Embassy was 
given passage in American naval vessels and was 
received as guests of the American government. This 
Embassy consisted of a Chief Ambassador and a Vice- 
Ambassador, who were princes of the highest rank in 
the Empire, a Censor and a Vice-Governor, who were 
also of high rank, and a retinue of officers, interpreters, 
physicians, and servants, the whole party numbering 
seventy-one persons. 

The reception of the Embassy at San Francisco was 
very enthusiastic. Twenty thousand dollars was 
appropriated from the city treasury to provide for 
their entertainment. The city authorities and leading 
citizens showed the Japanese every possible consider- 
ation and did all in their power to make their stay in 
the city pleasant. Under the auspices of the state and 
city authorities, a public reception was given the Em- 
bassy in the largest hall in the city, which was attended 
by an immense crowd of people.^ 

The trip from San Francisco to the eastern states 
was made by way of Panama, the Embassy arriving 
in Washington on May 13, i860. The Government 
had made thorough preparation for the reception of 
the Japanese visitors and treated them with the dis- 

1 Harper's Weekly, April 28, i860. 



The Japanese Invasion 



tinction and courtesy befitting their rank. They were 
granted interviews by the President and chief officers 
of state, receptions and banquets were held in their 
honor, and facilities were given them to visit the places 
of interest in the city and become acquainted with 
American institutions.^ The newspapers of that day 
devoted a large amount of space to the movements 
of the Embassy and published much information about 
Japan and things Japanese. The friendly tone of the 
newspaper press can be seen in the following quotation 
from an editorial : 

This Japanese Embassy is a matter of the highest 
national and commercial importance. The Japanese are 
the British of Asia. Like our ancestors of the British 
Isles, they are of insular origin and full of insular virtues 
and insular prejudices. They despise foreigners; but 
they know how to take care of themselves. Many of their 
customs seem absurd to us ; but they are honest in their 
adoption and thorough in their observance. Their coun- 
try produces a number of commodities which would find 
a sale here, and they consume many articles which we 
produce. Satisfy them that commercial intercourse with 
us would be beneficial to them, and a valuable trade will 
be created 

Independently, however, of immediate commercial 
benefits, the establishment of friendly relations with the 
Japanese cannot fail to be of marked advantage to our 
Pacific States. The State of Oregon and the future 
State of Washington will necessarily become intimately 
connected with their nearest neighbors over the water. 
Of those neighbors, Japan is the one best worth cultivat- 
ing. ... By and by there will necessarily grow up an 

1 Leslies Illustrated Newspaper, June 2, i860. 



Our First Acquaintance 



interchange not only of commodities but of men between 
our Pacific States and the Empire of Japan. Our people 
will go to Japan and will endeavor to show the Japanese 
the best side of the American character. On the other 
hand, the Japanese — if good relations be established be- 
tween the two countries — will send out some of their 
people to plant Japanese colonies in our territory. Of 
this interchange, the benefit will be obvious and mutual. 
Civilized as we boast of being, we can learn much of the 
Japanese; if nothing more, we can learn the duty of 
obeying the laws. In every point of view the visit of 
the Japanese is an important event, and we fervently 
trust that all classes of people will combine to do them 
honor.^ 

During their six weeks' visit in the eastern states, 
great excitement prevailed wherever they appeared. 
Every city they visited strove to outdo its rival in pro- 
viding entertainment for the distinguished guests of 
the nation. Record-breaking crowds assembled in the 
streets to see them pass by. The climax of their 
American visit was the Grand Ball given at the Metro- 
politan Hotel by the city of New York on June 25. On 
this occasion it is asserted that more than ten thousand 
of the leading citizens of New York and neighboring 
cities were present. No money or pains were spared 
in the effort to make it a brilliant affair. A contem- 
porary writer states that " the whole thing was arranged 
on a scale of unsurpassed splendor, prodigality, and 
magnificence. It was a scene of festivity altogether 
unparalleled in the history of New York." The arrival 
of the Japanese guests at the reception is thus described : 

1 Harper's Weekly, May 26, i860. 



8 The Japanese Invasion 

The Prince Ambassadors and the principal officers of 
the Embassy on their entrance from the hotel to the ball- 
room were received by the Joint Committee of the Com- 
mon Council and conducted through the various apart- 
ments appropriated to the festivities of the evening. On 
their entrance the beautiful tune of "Kathleen Mavour- 
neen " was struck up by the band. On entering the prin- 
cipal ballroom, chaperoned by the members of the Naval 
Commission, they were conducted through the throng 
of guests, who opened right and left, leaving a lane for 
them to pass through to the pavilion which had been 
prepared for their exclusive accommodation at the north 
of the building on the stage of the theater. The interest 
at this juncture was intense. The guests spontaneously 
rose, while the cry ran round the immense building of 
''the Japanese, the Japanese!" Every eye was strained 
and everyone present stood on tiptoe to see the members 
of the unique corps diplomatique Of the appear- 
ance of the guests we can only say that it was in every 
respect in keeping with the brilliancy of the scene amid 
which they moved with so much taste and refinement. 
The Japanese Princes were, of course, the principal 
attraction, and during the evening were the observed of 
all observers. They were placed in a position which 
suited them exactly, for, like the performers in a theater, 
they could see and yet be seen. Our eastern visitors 
seemed to be greatly delighted at the appearance and 
animation of the festive throng. Never before in their 
distant eastern homes did these Japanese gentlemen get 
entangled in such an ocean of satins, silk, and crinoline as 
revolved around them last night. They could do nothing 
else than sit down in quiet amazement at the rapid evolu- 
tions made by the lady dancers, who twirled around in 
the giddy waltz with a rapidity that would have done 
credit to an artificial fire-wheel. The Japanese could not 



Our First Acquaintance 



help expressing their delight at all they saw and felt, 
which they did by briefly articulated expressions, by 
gesticulations and smiles/ 

No reader of the contemporary accounts of the 
reception of the Embassy can doubt the sincerity of the 
welcome extended by the American government. The 
officers of state in their addresses of welcome and in 
their thoughtful planning for the comfort of the Em- 
bassy made every effort to convince the Japanese of 
our friendly attitude toward their nation. The official 
welcome in all its formal aspects passed off in the most 
successful manner and reflected great credit upon those 
who had it in charge. 

If we wish, however, to understand the real estimate 
that was placed upon the Japanese at that time, we 
cannot depend entirely upon the story of their official 
welcome. We must take note also of the conduct of 
the mass of the people, in this their first contact with 
the Japanese, in order to learn what sentiments and 
attitudes they revealed. On the occasion of the Em- 
bassy's visit to Philadelphia, a correspondent gives a 
vivid picture of the insults the Japanese had to face. 

The most disgusting and brutal language was unspar- 
ingly used by the crowd while the procession was passing 
over the route. This was especially the case in the lower 
portion of the city where the "governing classes" most 
do congregate. For instance, at one point, a Naval Com- 
missioner was greeted with the cry of " Say, you man 
with the epaulets, is that your monkey you have got with 

1 Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, July 7, i860. 



10 The Japanese Invasion 

you ? " And this is but one in a hundred of the humors 
of the crowd. It is to be particularly regretted that many 
of these remarks were plainly understood by a portion of 
the Embassy. This morning some of them came to Cap- 
tains Du Pont and Porter and said they feared from 
their conduct yesterday that the American people con- 
sidered them very ridiculous, and intimated that they 
should not be so severe in their sarcasms, as the Japa- 
nese considered the dress and manners of the people of 
this country equally curious, if not outlandish. They 
were evidently under the impression that anything but 
respect had been shown to them by many of the roughs, 
and the Imperial interpreter had reported that they had 
been called "niggers," while it was ascertained that an 
attempt had been made to pull one of their number out 

of his carriage A drunken fellow carelessly let off 

a pistol while conversing with a Japanese, who was so 
enraged at what he supposed was an attempt to murder 
him that he drew his sword and rushed at the offender, 
who would have been undoubtedly decapitated, had it not 
been for the bystanders.^ 

Of course we must not give too much weight to the 
unrestrained actions of an American crowd, which in 
its treatment of foreigners and even of its own political 
heroes has often gone far beyond the bounds of pro- 
priety. Without doubt the fact that the Japanese 
invariably appeared dressed in their native costume 
helped to magnify in the eyes of the people their for- 
eign peculiarities and further stimulated curiosity.^ 

1 Harper's Weekly, June 22,, i860. 

2 Harper's Weekly, May 26, i860, describes the appearance of 
the Japanese as follows : " The hair is shaved from all parts of 
the head excepting the sides and back, from which it is gathered 
in long bands to the crown and there fastened with a white string, 



Our First Acquaintance ' ii 

Nevertheless it is true that the mass of the people 
failed to take the Japanese seriously and persisted in 
treating them with the condescending familiarity 
bestowed upon children rather than with the respect 
due men in their position of power in the state. After 
their arrival in their hotel in Baltimore we are told 
that — 

.... a party of firemen mounted the balcony and intro- 
duced themselves to the Ambassadors. At last one of 
these noble fellows gave a characteristic and playful vent 
by taking off his heavy and dripping fire-cap and clap- 
ping it affectionately on the head of the Chief Ambassa- 
dor. This was received with such shouts of laughter that 
two other facetious firemen dropped their caps on the 
heads of the other Ambassadors, and the applause was 
terrific. The Japanese took the matter with great philos- 
ophy, but we have no doubt the historian of the party 

leaving a lock three or four inches long, which is stiffened with 
oil and brought forward to the forehead where it rests. They 
wear silk or crepe undercoats of various hues, looser robes of the 
same material and mostly blue being thrown and folded over them. 
In their belts of crepe they wear two swords, one short and the 
other longer, which are borne in neatly wrought scabbards of 
thick skin, inlaid with ornaments of gold and jewels. Their 
trousers are very wide and short, descending only to within, five 
or six inches of the ground, and are made of silk which is some- 
times covered with beautifully embroidered figures of buds and 
flowers. Upon their feet are white cloth coverings, half sock, 
half gaiter, closely fitting and fastened by cords. Their sandals 
are of straw and are composed of a small flat matting for the 
foot, and two cords — one passing over the instep, the other 
between the large toe and its neighbor — which serve to keep it 
in place. For pockets they use a part of their flowing sleeves and 
the front of their robes above their belt, the customary occupation 
of which by goodly sized packages gives the wearers a protuber- 
ance of stomach quite unaccountable at first sight." 



12 The Japanese Invasion 

will make his own comments upon these practical jokes 
when he submits it to the Tycoon. In the evening fire- 
works were let off, and the persecuted dignitaries were 
left to their repose.^ 

There was a disposition on the part of the Americans 
in general to look upon the Embassy as a show 
intended to furnish them amusement. Surprise was 
manifested when the Japanese conducted themselves 
with dignity as men of culture. It was plainly evident 
that they were regarded as men on a lower plane of 
civilization from whom not much could be expected. 
Thus we are told that when the Japanese sat down to 
their first dinner at Willard's Hotel in Washington, 
" greatly to the disappointment of all who were on the 
outlook for something funny, the Japanese took wine 
and used knives and forks like any other well-bred 
people." Also on the occasion of their first interview 
with President Buchanan the reporter writes: 

The interview, far from being absurd or amusing, as 
was anticipated, was of a solemn and serious character. 
Through the strange differences of dress, language, and 
custom, it was evident that the Ambassadors were men 
of high character, honor, intelligence, and refinement, 
and that the New World could teach them no lessons in 
propriety of demeanor or in a due sense of official re- 
sponsibility.^ 

The following account of the Embassy's visit to 
Congress shows clearly the attitude of even the more 
intelligent Americans toward the Japanese : 

^ Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 23, i860. 



Our First Acquaintance 13 

They were led over the building and shown the splen- 
did ceiling, but, to the astonishment of those introduced, 
they manifested much more interest in the mode of con- 
ducting the legislative proceedings than in any other 
part of the show. They remained but a short time and 
then retired, followed, of course, by a loud laugh from 
the representatives and by a wild mob rush of men and 
women from the galleries, which were left nearly empty. ^ 

Another instance of the indignities to whicli the 
Japanese were subjected is brought out in the descrip- 
tion of their inspection of the United States Mint at 
Philadelphia : 

It is worth mentioning that the female employees at 
the Mint behaved in a modest and ladylike manner, 
neither pressing up close to the Japanese nor clasping 
their hands nor annoying them in any manner whatever. 
It is said that this was almost the first instance since the 
Japanese have been in this country when the princes and 
suite were not literally annoyed by females when the 
latter had the opportunity to do so. It should be borne 
in mind, however, in justice to our fair countrywomen, 
that those who have thus annoyed them have been prin- 
cipally of the brazen and ignorant sort.^ 

It is no wonder that a writer in Harper's Weekly 
should make the following indignant protest against 
the rudeness of the American public : 

There are undoubtedly gentlemen and ladies in Amer- 
ica, but what a pity that the Japanese will never know it ! 
They have seen some probably during their visit here, 

1 Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 6, i860. 

2 Ibid., June 23, i860.. 



14 The Japanese Invasion 

but they could not know them in the multitude. They 
know the gentleman who smashed his hat over their eyes 
in Baltimore ; the lady who filled up the window in Phil- 
adelphia; the shouting, staring, insulting mob which has 

dogged them everywhere The drollest part of the 

whole thing is that we speak of the Japanese as if they 
were barbarians and savages. But we have yet to read 
of the moment during these proceedings in which the 
Japanese gentlemen have not been quite as dignified, 
intelligent, and well bred as any gentlemen in any country 
or time. The barbarian and savage behavior has been 
entirely upon our part ; and it is a fair question whether 
the princes will not return with a profound regret that 
Japan has so far foregone her ancient traditions as to 
open her ports to the desolating influx of western 
civilization.^ 

It thus appears that our first experiences with the 
Japanese resemble somewhat our treatment of them at 
the present day. In i860 as well as in these opening 
years of the twentieth century there was the friendly 
attitude of our national government endeavoring in 
every possible way to promote peace and good will 
between the two countries. Then as now shrewd 
business men were quick to see the advantage of trade 
with the Orient which offered such a w^ide market for 
American goods. There were people in those days as 
well as at the present who admired the culture of the 
Japanese and pointed out the lessons w^e could learn 
by contact w^ith the Far East. In the attitude of the 
mass of the people we notice the same tendency to look 
upon the Japanese in a condescending way, to assign 

1 Harper's Weekly, June 23, i860. 



Our First Acquaintance 15 

them to a position of inferiority, and even to subject 
them to rude insults. 

But in spite of all these points of similarity, our 
attitude toward the Japanese has undergone a vast 
change within recent years. An undercurrent of sus- 
picion and dislike has spread over America and has 
broken out in certain sections in expressions of open 
hostility. The development of Japan into a world 
power, our contact with Japanese immigrants under 
the stress of modern labor conditions, are among the 
new factors in the situation that have made inevitable 
the rise of our American- Japanese problem. 

It is very evident that we are no longer dealing with 
an obscure nation getting its first glimpse of the 
western world. The Japanese are now a highly organ- 
ized and efficient people who are seeking an outlet in 
the West for their surplus population. The over- 
crowded East is making its first advance upon the more 
sparsely settled West. Hitherto the Japanese have 
come as suppliants asking to share the opportunities 
we enjoy. Whether they will later follow Commodore 
Perry's example and back up their demands with a fleet 
of battleships it is impossible to predict. The situation, 
however, is serious enough to warrant the consideration 
of those interested in promoting more cordial relations 
between the peoples of the East and of the West. 



CHAPTER II 

THE JAPANESE ATTITUDE TOWARD THE WEST 

^ I ^HE first Westerners to arrive in Japan were a 
-*■ party of Portuguese who in the early part of the 
sixteenth century were forced by a storm to take shelter 
in a Japanese port. These foreign sailors were received 
with great kindness by the Japanese and were sent on 
their way with the assurance that trade between the 
two countries would be welcomed. In a few years 
Portuguese ships bringing merchandise and mission- 
aries came to Japan and inaugurated an era of friendly 
intercourse mutually satisfactory to both nations. The 
open-minded, liberal attitude of the Japanese at that 
time is evidenced both by their ready response to the 
teachings of Christian missionaries and by their deter- 
mined efforts to share in the advantages of foreign 
trade. In their first contact with the western world 
the Japanese gave no signs of the existence of an 
unreasoning race prejudice. Writes Captain Brinkley : 

In 1 541, we find the Japanese celebrated, or notorious, 
throughout the whole of the Far East for exploits abroad ; 
we find them known as " Kings of the Sea " ; we find 
them welcoming foreigners with cordiality and opposing 
no obstacles to foreign commerce or even to the propa- 
gandism of foreign creeds ; we find them so quick to 
recognize the benefits of trade and so apt to pursue them, 
that in the space of a few years they established com- 

16 



Attitude Toward the West 17 

mercial relations with no less than twenty oversea mar- 
kets; we find them authorizing the Portuguese and the 
English to trade at every port in the Empire; we find, 
in short, all the elements requisite for a career of com- 
mercial enterprise, ocean-going adventure, and inter- 
national liberality.^ 

After almost a century of this foreign intercourse, 
the tide of national sentiment turned and a revolution- 
ary change was made in Japan's foreign policy. Every 
Westerner was expelled from the country. No Japa- 
nese was permitted to go abroad upon pain of death. 
Ships large enough for ocean voyages could no longer 
be constructed. The government, in its efforts to 
uproot every trace of the Christian religion that had 
spread so rapidly among the people, entered upon an 
era of severe persecution equaled only by the horrors 
of the Spanish Inquisition. An edict promulgated at 
that time said : 

So long as the sun warms the earth, let no Christian 
be so bold as to come to Japan ; and let all know that if 
the King of Spain, or the Christian's God, or the Great 
God of all violate this command, he shall pay for it with 
his head.^ 

Through the enforcement of the most rigid laws, 
foreign influence was driven out of the country, and 
Japan followed the policy of strict seclusion for more 
than two hundred years. 

1 Brinkley, F., Japan, Its History, Arts, and Literature, vol. 3, 
p. 129. 

2 Gary, Otis, History of Christianity in Japan, F. H. Revell 
Company, vol. i, p. 231. 



i8 The Japanese Invasion 

The reasons for this revulsion of feeling are not 
hard to find. The Japanese could not long be blind to 
the fact that the Europeans of that day, whether mer- 
chants or missionaries, were by no means mere pro- 
moters of western civilization and culture.^ There 
grew in their minds the suspicion that even the propa- 
gation of Christianity was being used as a cloak to hide 
the political designs of the foreigners. They believed 
that their country was endangered by the presence of 
foes masquerading as friends. Their only safety, they 
felt, lay in taking stem measures before the foreigners 
had secured a firm foothold in their country. 

^ " It must ever be borne in mind that after the discovery of 
India by Da Gama in 1498, the eastern trade was always main- 
tained as a royal monopoly, and that the early Portuguese dis- 
coverers were not, as were the English afterwards, mere traders 
or private adventurers, but admirals with a royal commission to 
conquer territory and to promote the spread of what was called 
Christianity. So much appears for example in the case of Calral, 
who was in command of the fleet of thirteen sail that left the 
Tagus for India in 1500. The sum of his instructions was to begin 
with preaching, and if that failed, to proceed to the sharp de- 
termination of the sword. As for Da Gama and his method of 
propagating 'the true religion,' in spite of his well-deserved and 
undying fame as a discoverer, his career is a record of brutal 
atrocities that make one blush for civilization, for religion, and 

for humanity alike These pious ruffians seem to have been 

thoroughly convinced that it was not only their right, but their 
duty, to conquer and convert the heathen by any and every means 
whatsoever. Possibly when the keen-witted Japanese came to 
grasp the import of this fact — as there are grounds to believe 
they did, in the early seventeenth century — their expulsion of 
the foreign missionaries and their stern and ruthless suppression 
of Christianity in the country became merely matters of course." 
A History of Japan During Century of Early Foreign Intercourse, 
p. 45 ff. 



Attitude Toward the West 19 

From this time dates the beginning of Japanese 
prejudice against the West, a prejudice so deep-seated 
that it caused Japan to drop out of touch with the 
progress of the world and to become almost hopelessly- 
outdistanced in the race of material civilization. What 
little knowledge of the western world filtered into 
Japan during its two centuries of seclusion came largely 
through Dutch traders who, by accepting humiliating 
restrictions, carried on a little trade at the port of 
Nagasaki. Some Dutch books were secured by the 
Japanese and translated, but so violent was the preju- 
dice against things western that this new learning could 
not be widely disseminated.^ 

It is easy to understand, therefore, why so much 
suspicion and fear were aroused by Commodore Perry's 
visit to Japan in 1853, when he demanded that the 
country be opened to foreign intercourse. If his 
demand had not been backed up by the presence of 
American battleships, the Japanese would doubtless 
have given it scant consideration. Their laws against 
foreign trade were still in full force and there was no 
disposition on their part to violate the traditions of the 
past. It was only their inability to cope with the situ- 
ation that caused them to consent to open their country. 
The Japanese, who were then as now past masters in 
the art of courtesy, did not allow their feelings of 
chagrin to affect their treatment of the foreigners. No 
unpleasant incidents occurred to mar the first visit of 

^ Kikuchi, Baron, " Introduction of Western Learning into 
Japan," Japan Advertiser, Mar. 4-5, 191 5. 



20 The Japanese Invasion 

the Americans to Japan. Even the common people 
showed a friendliness and civility hardly to be expected 
under the circumstances.^ A contemporary account 
of Perry's expedition to Japan states that — 

.... throughout these negotiations the Japanese showed 
none of the captiousness and arrogance usually attributed 
to them, but as much forbearance and courtesy with the 
strangers as the most graceful European diplomatists 
exhibit toward each other.- 

During the years immediately following the opening 
of Japan, many of the Japanese leaders as well as a 
large portion of the common people seemed favorably 
disposed toward the foreigners. The hostile attitude 
was confined very largely to the samurai, the armed 
retainers of the daimios, who as the protectors of their 
nation felt it their duty to rid the country of the 
western invaders. This proud military class, accus- 
tomed to receive the homage of all whom they met, 
bitterly resented the humiliating way in which their 
nation had been compelled to bow to the foreign 
demands. The samurai were acquainted with the his- 
tory of their past and knew the sad results that had 

1 In the Journal of Dr. Williams, the interpreter of the Perry 
expedition, we find the following testimony to the friendliness of 
the people : " The surveying boats have had considerable friendly 
intercourse with the people along the beach and in boats today 
and on Saturday, and ere long there seems likely to spring up a 
pleasant understanding. The people are evidently willing to cul- 
tivate kindly feelings with their visitors." Trans. Asiatic Soc. of 
Japan, vol. 37, part 2, p. 108. 

2 " Japan Entering the Commercial World," the Living Age, vol. 
42, 1854, p. 189. 



Attitude Toward the West 21 

followed the first foreign invasion in the sixteenth 
century. They must have been at least dimly aware 
that the coming of the Westerner heralded a new era 
which would mark the downfall of their prestige and 
power. In their eyes the foreigner was a dangerous 
intruder who must be expelled at all costs. On the body 
of a Japanese killed in an attack on the British legation 
at that time was found a paper which contained these 
words: "I, though I am a person of low standing, 
have no patience to stand by and see the sacred empire 
defiled by the foreigners." ^ These zealous patriots 
not only tried to drive out the foreigners, but also 
directed their assaults against the Japanese ministers 
of state who were using their influence to promote 
closer relations with the West. Some of the best Japa- 
nese leaders of that day gave up their lives in their 
attempt to lead their nation away from its old policy 
of seclusion. Over the head of one of these victims 
was placed this inscription: "This is the head of a 
traitor who has violated the most sacred laws of Japan 
^ — those which forbid the admission of foreigners into 
the country." ^ 

This anti-foreign feeling was still further aggravated 
by the treaties which Japan was practically compelled 
to make with western powers. In the treaties of 1854 
and 1858 between Japan and America, the Japanese 
government granted the right of extra-territoriality 
and agreed to impose only a fixed minimum tariff rate, 

1 Macgowan, " Japanese Foreign Relations," the Continental 
Monthly, vol. 4, 1863, p. 338. 



22 The Japanese Invasion 

thus surrendering two fundamental privileges of an 
independent nation — the right of jurisdiction over all 
the people in its territory, and the right to protect its 
own industries against foreign competition. The intel- 
ligent Japanese who were aware of the nature of these 
treaties felt keenly this humiliation. Filled with patri- 
otic enthusiasm for the welfare of their country it was 
natural that they should take up the cry of Joi (" expel 
the barbarians "), and put forth every effort to accom- 
plish their purpose. 

Moreover, the haughty, insolent attitude of some of 
the foreigners in Japan played no small part in increas- 
ing their unpopularity among the people. In 1863 a 
writer well acquainted with actual conditions criticized 
in the following frank manner the conduct of foreigners 
residing in that country : 

While for good political reasons some daimios have 
endeavored to render the treaties inoperative and to 
frighten foreigners out of the land, there has been spring- 
ing up among the people a strong antipathy toward them 
for which they have themselves alone to blame. Who 
that read the glowing accounts of the reception at first ac- 
corded to our people, did not admire the suavity and 
hospitality of the Japanese? This friendly intercourse 
lasted only until the parties came to understand each 
other. Now, we are told, when a western man passes 
through the streets, he is hooted at as Tojin baka ("a 
foreign fool") 

The practical joking in which many foreigners are apt 
to indulge Is often carried too far, and being accom- 
panied by an arrogant demeanor of superiority, proves 
highly offensive. Again, we find the Tojin baka often 



Attitude Toward the West 23 

fail to discriminate between different classes of females. 
Discovering that the Japanese were lewd beyond all other 
peoples, with institutions fostering vice, without even 
the flimsy pretext of hygienic considerations, they take 
liberties which rouse the vindictive rage of husbands. 
.... In the use of firearms the prejudices of the natives 
have been needlessly offended. Shooting game is not 
generally allowed to the people, yet foreigners have been 
reckless in the pursuit of sport, regardless where they 
sought it, and terrifying the people. Again, riding on 
horseback is allowed only to nobles, and it is a source of 
provocation to all classes to witness the equestrian per- 
formances of foreigners of every station in life, whose 
amusement at times consists in making pedestrians scatter 
as they gallop through the crowded streets.^ 

In all the 'dealings of Westerners with the Japanese 
during the first years of the Meiji era, there was this 
assumption of superiority, a tendency to treat Japan 
in a condescending and patronizing way which was 
very galling to the proud and sensitive Japanese people. 
The more hot-blooded among them came out boldly 
and demanded that the matter should be settled by an 
appeal to the sword. The leaders of the nation, how- 
ever, advocated a different policy. Realizing the weak- 
ness of their nation, they hid their bitterness beneath 
a cloak of deferential politeness, and set about the task 
of building up an empire that could demand respect 
and defend itself against foreign aggression. With 
them it was not merely a question of avenging insults, 
but of preserving the independence of their nation. 
The arrogant foreigners who had so little regard for 

^ The Continental Monthly, vol. 4, 1863, p. 339. 



24 The Japanese Invasion 

their customs and institutions might at any moment 
attempt to exploit their nation as they were already 
exploiting China. Their safety lay only in strength. 
Medieval means of defense were inadequate to cope 
with the situation. The more efficient western methods 
must be adopted if they were to succeed in their forced 
competition with the western world. " We will learn 
all you can teach and then — w^e will fight you" was 
the frank statement of many Japanese patriots of that 
day.^ 

Later, when the Japanese government was more 
strongly established and the people had gained a wider 

1 De Forest, J. H., Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom, p. 24. 

The feelings of the Oriental in the presence of western aggres* 
sion have been interpreted as follows by Dr. Gulick: "The 
aggressive, domineering white man has recently begun to overrun 
the earth; he has destroyed many peoples, overthrown their 
governments, seized their lands, and murdered countless millions. 
He regards neither right nor heaven. Might alone is his god. We 
have never interfered with him, but here he is all around us 
holding his conquered lands with a mighty grip, demanding trade 
and an open door, and so-called rights in our part of the world. 
His uncouth ways, his materialistic civilization, and his strange 
beliefs are dangerous to our ancient and noble life. It is true 
that at present we are weaker than- he, for we have never believed 
in fighting. For war is neither the rational nor the right way to 
settle difficulties. But since that is his way and the only way he 
understands, we will learn his secrets; master his methods; re- 
organize our government; establish army and navy; and intro- 
duce the instruments of western civilization, adding all its good 
points to ours; thus shall we be able to resist his aggressions, 
maintain our independence, and take our rightful dominant place 
among the nations of the earth. For we are inherently superior 
to the white man, not only in economic efficiency, but in brain 
power, general culture, and moral character." — Gulick, S. L-, The 
American Japanese Problem, pp. 7-8. 



Attitude Toward the West 25 

knowledge of the West, this attitude of hostility was 
pushed into the background. Fear of western aggres- 
sion was superseded by a strong desire to win western 
recognition. The achievements of the West convinced 
them of the real backwardness of their nation. Says 
Kawakami : 

Like a docile pupil the Japanese frankly admitted and 
recognized the superiority of not only western civiliza- 
tion, but also the western race. When I was in school 
in Japan as a small boy, my textbooks taught me that 
" the people of the Occident are exceeding industrious, 
always rising early in the morning, and never taking a 
noonday nap." They told me that the Westerners were 
"our superiors physically, mentally, and morally." It 
was not only the school children but their teachers and 
parents who believed such sweeping statements with 
unquestioning simplicity.^ 

The Japanese were painfully aware that they were 
outside the circle of social and political equality, a fact 
to which their treaties with western nations bore 
constant witness. Their great ambition was to escape 
from this humiliating position by securing as soon as 
possible a revision of these treaties. To this end de- 
liberate attempts were made to gain foreign favor by 
adopting the civilization of the West. The strongly 
centralized government under the control of able and 
progressive leaders reconstructed as far as possible 
their old institutions along western lines. Efforts were 
made to conform to western social standards. Counts 

1 Kawakami, K. K., Asia at the Door, p. 47. 



26 The Japanese Invasion 

Inouye and Ito attempted to Europeanize high society 
in the Japanese capital. Court ladies ordered gowns 
from Paris and learned to waltz in western style. A 
suitable foreign building was erected in Tokyo where 
expensive balls were given to members of the diplo- 
matic corps. At these functions Japanese ladies of 
high rank put aside their traditional ideas of modesty 
and retirement and associated with men on terms of 
equality.^ These innovations made by the leaders of 
the government set the fashion for the people. West- 
ern ideas and customs were adopted bodily, regardless 
of their utility under oriental conditions. Leading 
men in Japan urged that Christianity be accepted 
merely as a matter of good policy, and it was even 
proposed that the Emperor receive the rite of Christian 
baptism.^ To such an extent did the craze for things 
foreign prevail during the period of western popularity 
in the eighties that many thought the Japanese nation 
would be occidentalized in the course of a very few 
years. 

Having thus conformed in such large measure to 
western standards, the Japanese felt that they had a 
right to new treaties that would admit them into the 
circle of civilized nations. All the resources of diplo- 
macy were called into requisition in their endeavor 
to convince the powers that further discriminatory 
treatment was an act of injustice. 

1 Atkinson, J. L., " Treaty Relations of Japan with America," 
Our Day, Sept., 1892. p. 2-]-]. 

2 Clement, E. W., Christianity in Modern Japan, p. 24. 



Attitude Toward the West 27 

When all their efforts ended in failure, there spread 
over Japan a wave of indignant protest that carried 
with it a reaction against things western. Native cus- 
toms came back into favor and the cry of Japan for the 
Japanese was raised. Oriental reserve no longer con- 
cealed their anti- foreign feelings which had been 
repressed for a number of years. Hundreds of 
Christian converts shook off their allegiance to the 
foreign religion and drifted back into their former 
mode of life. Enthusiastic missionaries who had pre- 
dicted the speedy christianization of Japan found them- 
selves doomed to disappointment. The mad rush to ape 
foreign custom ceased and in its stead a more conserva- 
tive spirit prevailed. Japan's victory over China in 
1895 greatly strengthened the national consciousness 
of the Japanese, and gave them the prestige and con- 
fidence they needed to deal more aggressively with the 
West. Their renewed demands for treaty revision 
could no longer be denied and in 1899 there went into 
effect new treaties that granted Japan equal rights and 
privileges in her international relations. 

This tardy recognition of Japan removed one source 
of friction with the West, but the long-drawn-out 
struggle had left feelings of bitterness that could not 
easily be forgotten. Moreover, the West still main- 
tained its assumption of superiority and in various 
ways made clear to the Japanese that they were 
regarded as a people on a lower plane of civilization. 
Because of the wide difference between the standards 
of living in Japan and in the West, such an attitude 



28 The Japanese Invasion 

on the part of the foreigners residing in Japan was 
almost inevitable. Even the foreign missionary lived 
in a house much larger than the average Japanese could 
afford and received a salary five times the amount that 
was granted to the native pastor. Foreigners employed 
by the government in any capacity had to be paid a 
much larger salary than Japanese in similar positions. 
Indeed, in almost all the relations between foreigners 
and Japanese, the fact that one was on a higher level 
than the other was unavoidably apparent. As far as 
the external possession of political rights was con- 
cerned, the Japanese had gained their point, but it was 
continually forced upon their attention that they were 
as far as ever from being admitted into the inner circle 
of western society. Under these circumstances it was 
inevitable not only that their old feelings of dislike of 
foreigners should be perpetuated, but that with the 
growth of national power they should become more 
openly a characteristic of the Japanese nation. 

Professor Ladd in an article published in 1895 niade 
the following clear statement of the way the foreigner 
was looked upon in Japan : 

The real and predominating attitude of the popular 
mind toward the " foreigner " is still the same unreason- 
ing sentiment that it has ever been. A few and only a 
few, even of the educated Japanese, have any intelligent 
and sympathetic knowledge of that type of mental life 
which has been developed by a western and Christian 
civilization. Among the people of all classes, unin- 
formed, unreasoning feeling towards all foreigners still 
underlies the crust of enforced or selfish and conven- 



Attitude Toward the West 29 

tional politeness. This sentiment is a mixture of sur- 
prise and admiration with repulsion and contempt. A 
well-principled or even a cosmopolitan feeling toward all 
humankind, an "enthusiasm of humanity," is a rare 
and difficult thing to find in Japan. What but the knowl- 
edge of this mental attitude of his countrymen could 
have influenced an intelligent native preacher to say in 
extremest praise of the power of divine grace : " It can 
make you love even a foreigner." ^ 

Ten years later Dr. Gulick wrote even more strongly 
concerning the Japanese feeling of antipathy for men 
of a foreign race : 

Few foreigners have received a hearty welcome from 
the people at large. They are suspected and hated; as 
little room as possible is made for them. The less of 
their presence and advice the better. So far as there is 
any interest in them, it is on the ground of utility, and 
not of inherent good will because of a feeling of ab- 
original unity. Of course there are many exceptions to 
these statements, especially among the Christians. But 
such is the attitude of the people as a whole, especially 
of the middle and upper classes, toward the foreigners.^ 

That these statements are even today not wide of 
the mark can be verifiied by anyone who has an inti- 
mate knowledge of the life of the Japanese people. 
The passing visitor may see nothing of this anti- 
foreign prejudice, for the well-bred Japanese usually 
conceals his feelings under an impassive mask and 
plays the part of host to foreign guests with a suavity 

^ Ladd, G. T., " Mental Characteristics of the Japanese," Scrib- 
ner's Magazine, 17:85. 
2 Gulick, S. L., Evolution of the Japanese, p. 365. 



30 The Japanese Invasion 

of manner that conveys the impression of sincerity. 
As a matter of fact it is to some of Japan's distin- 
guished visitors that we owe many of our misconcep- 
tions of the attitude and feelings of the Japanese 
nation. After being feted and dined and shown every 
possible courtesy, they either become too bewildered 
to see beneath the surface or they feel under obligation 
to make some return for the compliments showered 
upon them. At any rate the highly colored views they 
make public after their return from the East frequently 
give us an inaccurate picture of real conditions. 

Within recent years many Japanese have been quite 
candid in expressing their attitude toward the western 
world, as is evidenced by their published articles in- 
tended for foreign readers. Yone Noguchi, a Japanese 
journalist, after his return to Japan from his trip 
abroad in 19 14, sent to the Nation a letter in which 
he expressed with surprising frankness his opinion 
of western culture. In the course of this communica- 
tion occur these words : 

What does the present European war mean to us Ori- 
entals? It means the saddest downfall of the so-called 
western civilization; our belief that it was builded on 
a higher and sounder footing than ours was at once 
knocked down and killed; we are sorry that we some- 
how overestimated its happy possibility and were de- 
ceived and cheated by its superficial glory. We now see 
that it was merely a mirage or optical illusion of a thing 
which in its truest sense never existed ; it was simply 
a changed form or crafty masquerading of an avaricious 
instinct of primitive barbarism. The western people 



Attitude Toward the West 31 

with all sorts of colleges and institutions in their most 
advanced order are after all like their naked friends in 

far-away Asia or Africa We Orientals will insist 

in future not to believe whatever high philosophy on love 
or peace or humanity the western scholars and theologians 

might write I have.been losing for some long time 

my own respect towards the West and her own civiliza- 
tion Having much dissatisfaction with the western 

life, I returned to a country whose immediate, most im- 
portant determination should be a refusal to the western 
invasion.^ 

Not the least significant aspect of the foregoing 
statement is the attitude of mind which prompted the 
writer to go out of his way to inform the Westerners 
of his opinion of them. An occasion had arisen when 
it was possible for the Japanese to assume an attitude 
of superiority and point out an apparent failure of 
western civilization. The expression of his views 
through the medium of the Japanese press was not 
sufficient for his purpose. His mind could only be 
relieved by sending back to the countries he had just 
visited his repudiation of their institutions. 

While Noguchi's statement may be considerably dis- 
counted because of his well-known propensity for 
radical opinions along various lines, similar anti- 
foreign articles have been published by the Japanese 
newspaper press with such frequency during the last 
few years that they can hardly be regarded merely as 
the rabid utterances of sensation-mongers. To a far 

iNoguchi, Y., "The Downfall of Western Civilization," the 
Nation, Oct. 8, 1914, p. 432. 



32 The Japanese Invasion 

greater extent than is usually realized, they represent 
the development of a public opinion that openly ex- 
presses itself, regardless of what may be the official 
attitude of the government. When delicate situations 
have arisen with foreign nations, the calm, dispassion- 
ate statements of official Japan have frequently been 
contradicted by chauvinistic sentiments published by 
certain newspapers, which are widely quoted abroad. 
Japanese leaders try to counteract the influence of these 
anti- foreign utterances by stating that they are merely 
emanations from an irresponsible jingo press. The 
truth is, however, that they do represent the feelings 
of a portion of the Japanese people and that they 
exercise no little influence on the molding of public 
opinion throughout the nation. 

The Japanese newspapers have, in general, a marked 
tendency to be sensational and to indulge in frank 
statements quite at variance with oriental reserve. 
The third page of the average Japanese newspaper 
in its reports of scandals and unsavory gossip puts to 
shame even the yellowest of American journals. It 
may be that the newspaper is too new an institution 
in Japan to be subject to their ancient code, and so is 
regarded as a legitimate safety valve for their pent- 
up -emotions. At any rate the frank editorial expres- 
sions directed against the actions of foreign powers, 
their threats of war because of real or fancied insults 
from abroad, and their sharp criticism of the govern- 
ment when it shows any signs of weakness in its 
foreign policy possess a real significance for those 



Attitude Toward the West 33 

who wish to understand the attitude of the Japanese 
nation and make it a fair assumption that the old 
anti- foreign sentiment still exists in spite of all official 
assurance of friendliness for the West. 



CHAPTER III 

THE CLOSING OF THE OPEN DOOR 

^T^HE following striking statement by Yamato 
-*- Ichihashi gives one reason for our changed atti- 
tude toward Japan, and contains more than one element 
of truth: 

There existed, and still does exist, a group of men 
and women in America who liked or like Japan because 
Japan was or is so fundamentally different from all 
other countries of the world. To these people charm 
and strangeness are inseparable qualities in Japan. The 
Mt. Fuji is charming, but only because she is strangely 
unique among the mountains of the world. Nikko is 
charming, but because there nature and art are brought 
into harmony strangely unrealized in the West 

But more strange is the author of these strange and, 
therefore, charming arts. He is so unwestern, therefore 
so unhuman, that is to say, beyond the comprehension 
of western minds. Nevertheless he is charming because 
he is strange ; indeed every act of his is strange and his 
surrounding is fantastic. The blacksmith squats at his 
anvil. The carpenter pulls his plane and saw. The Jap- 
anese speak backwards, read backwards, and write back- 
wards. Surely they are a strange folk. And this was or is 
the world of unreality in which Lafcadio Hearn and his 
curio friends refused or refuse to face reality. The vision 
was so enchanting. The Westerner thus sought in Japan, 
as did the Chinese in legendary days, to enjoy a life no- 
where else to be enjoyed. Of course they liked this Japan. 

But to their utter astonishment, not to say their dis- 

34 



Closing of the Open Door 35 

appointment, these strange, unhuman Japanese gradually 
took on human shape and the still worse human mind. 
They began to learn to speak, to read, and to write a la 
Occident, if necessary. The blacksmith squats or stands, 
as the occasion demands. The carpenter pulls or pushes, 
according to the kind of tool he uses. The art of gar- 
dening is not forgot. Curios are still produced, not so 
much now by mysterious hands, but by horrible western 
machinery, the very destroyer of art. So in addition to 
netsuke, medicine chests, and thousands of other " Httle 
grand" things, even much-despised dreadnaughts, float- 
ing toys of civilized men, are being manufactured by the 
once unhuman, incomprehensible Japanese. The speed of 
telegraphy is now valued in Japan as in the West. Sedan 
chairs disappeared, but railroads traverse the Empire 
from end to end. Picturesque native junks are no more. 
Instead, stately, indeed palatial steamers plow the ocean. 
The flag of the Rising Sun now disgraces several ports 
of Europe and America by its presence. 

Thatched roofs are fast being eliminated. Dwellings 
are now bricked and stoned. The ding-ding-ding of 
street cars and the toot-toot-toot of automobiles have 
shattered the music of Japanese urban silence. It is be- 
yond repair. Not a few have cast away their footgear 
so strange, and barbarous western shoes now cover their 
dainty feet. Many now fail to pray at Asakusa Shrine. 
But then these go to Christian churches, hideous con- 
structions devoid of art and — in brief, curio Japan is 
no more, or at least it is not Japan complete. Her 
strangeness has disappeared; with it her charm. Japan 
is the skeleton of a beauty. And now she is conspicu- 
ously human. She is too common. Of course nobody 
likes her now. But who can help it?^ 

ilchihashi, Yamato, "Japan Liked and Disliked," New York 
Japan Review, Aug., 1913, pp. 109-10. 



36 The Japanese Invasion 

There is no doubt but that there was something 
romantic and attractive about old Japan. Its quaint 
customs and elaborate politeness and artistic fame 
gained added glamour through distance and unfamili- 
arity. Above all there was no commercial or industrial 
rivalry to cause unpleasantness, and the Japanese very 
courteously assumed the subordinate role which the 
West assigned them. In i860 the Japanese were 
merely a newly discovered people whose strange cos- 
tumes and novel appearance piqued our curiosity. Our 
reaction toward them was instinctive, spontaneous, and 
unreflecting. We never stopped to consider what our 
association with them would involve. Now the situ- 
ation has entirely changed. The Japanese no longer 
flatter our pride by showing astonishment at our great- 
ness, but have become our competitors in the industrial 
and political world. Human nature being as it is, old 
Japan with its works of art and teachable people would 
naturally be more popular than modern Japan with its 
battleships and aggressive nationalism determined to 
compete with us in every field of human endeavor. 
Says Professor W. I. Thomas : 

The Japanese for fifty years have been diligently ac- 
quiring our habits, with the view of equaling our activ- 
ities, and in the degree that they showed ability equal 
to ours along our own lines, we began to have a fellow 
feeling for them and even a very warm admiration. 
They looked charming to us in their own country, and 
we were progressing toward social, political, commercial, 
and matrimonial alliances with them when the genial 
currents of our soul were frozen by the discovery that 



Closing of the Open Door 2>7 

they were dangerous. In our own country they are 
better fruit growers and farmers than we are and their 
standard of living is lower. They are therefore a men- 
ace, and there begins to be a reinstatement of the hate 
attitude, especially on our western coast. ^ 

The beginning of our awakening to the fact that 
Japan was to become a serious rival of western nations 
dates back to 1894-5, when Japan waged a successful 
war against China and clearly demonstrated her mili- 
tary prowess. After this unexpected display of Japan's 
fighting power, it was no longer possible to regard her 
ambitions and national policies with indifference. For 
more than a generation the Japanese had been made 
to feel that they were almost hopelessly outdistanced 
in their efforts to catch up with western progress, but 
now the goal of equal treatment and recognition as a 
world power seemed about to be realized. Under these 
circumstances their old pride of race naturally re- 
asserted itself. Their military successes inflamed the 
masses of the people and gave them inflated ideas of 
their own importance. In the eyes of many Japanese 
their adaptation of western civilization was regarded 
as a greater achievement than all the scientific dis- 
coveries of the West. It began to be asserted that in 
Japan would be developed a blend of oriental and 
occidental civilizations far superior to anything the 
world had ever seen. Their nation was to produce 
the universal religion and become such a center of 

1 Thomas, W. L, " The Significance of the Orient for the Occi- 
dent," Amer. Journ. Soc, 13:732. 



38 The Japanese Invasion 

knowledge that western scholars would some time come 
and sit at their feet.^ 

This development of national pride and self- 
consciousness was reflected in the Japanese emigrants 
who went abroad and also in the attitude of the govern- 
ment which jealously watched over their interests. The 
Japanese, who, after their war with China, began to 
arrive in America in rapidly increasing numbers, were 
filled with a new sense of dignity and pride. They 
did not come as humble immigrants from a decadent 
land, but as representatives of a victorious and pro- 
gressive nation. While temporarily, by virtue of neces- 
sity, they might be willing to occupy a servile position 
as did the Chinese, this was regarded only as a stepping- 
stone to something better. They possessed the ambi- 
tion to rise out of the ranks of unskilled laborers and 
took advantage of every opportunity to do so. It was 
this laudable ambition, together with a bold assertion 
of their rights, that first marked them out as different 
from the Chinese, who had always meekly accepted 
a subordinate place. It was also their possession of 
these same characteristics that helped to make inevi- 
table the rise of the Japanese problem. 

As early as 1884 Japanese peasants and coolies 
began to arrive on our Pacific coast, but their numbers 
were too small to attract much attention. For more 
than a quarter of a century it had been the Chinese 
who constituted our oriental problem. The people in 
the western states believed that the Chinese invasion 

^ Evolution of the Japanese, pp. 137-40. 



Closing of the Open Door 39 

was the great menace to their welfare. In their eyes 
all the vices of the Orient were summed up in the 
Chinese coolies, who were coming in such increasing 
numbers that it was felt their absolute exclusion was 
imperative. The few Japanese who came to America 
either were looked upon with indifference or were 
regarded with favor, for they seemed to possess the 
virtues, but not the vices of the Chinese. A writer in 
Bradstreefs in 1884, commenting on the arrival of 200 
Japanese peasants in San Francisco, said : 

It appears that emigration to the United States has 
at last commenced in Japan America is to be con- 
gratulated on these adjuncts to western industry. The 
Japanese peasants are as industrious as they are frugal, 
temperate, and skilled in agriculture.^ 

As far as can be gathered from the few references 
to the Japanese in the press of that day, this seems 
to have been the general attitude of the American 
public. Because of the enforcement of the Chinese 
exclusion law, employers were hard pressed to find 
enough laborers to carry on their work. To supply 
this need they looked to the new Japanese immigrants 
who were regarded as more capable and efficient 
workmen. 

In the early nineties, however, when the tide of 
Japanese immigration began rapidly to increase, the 
Japanese became unpopular in those communities in 
which they had congregated, and suffered the same 

1 Bradstreet's, Oct. 25, 1884, p. 268. 



40 The Japanese Invasion 

odium that had formerly attached to the Chinese. 
Yoshio Markino gives the following vivid picture of 
the feeling then existing against the Japanese in San 
Francisco : 

The next day I went to the Golden Gate Park with 
another Japanese. Whenever we passed before the 
crowds, they shouted "Jap" and "Sukebei" (the latter 
word is too rude to translate). Then some of them 
even spat on us. When we came out to the corner of 
Geary Street, pebbles were showered on us. This was 
my first and very last visit to the Golden Gate Park. 

By the experiences day by day I had learnt that there 
was nothing but domestic work left for my livelihood, 
because the Californians didn't recognize us as the 
humans and they wouldn't accept any of our brain 
work 

Once while I was passing the spare ground on the 
corner of Fillmore Street and Geary Street some big 
fellow threw a large stone at me. It struck my head. 
My hat was broken and my head got hurt. I never 
took any notice but walked on. 

A young lady was walking on the opposite side. She 
came to me and said, "Why don't you get a policeman 
to prison him?" I said, "No ma'am, it is quite useless, 
ma'am. I tried it once or twice before, but police don't 
take any notice of us Japanese." ^ 

At this time the Japanese were arriving on the 
Pacific coast at the rate of about 1,500 a year. By the 
year 1895 there were less than ten thousand Japanese 
in the United States. The fact that in spite of the 

1 Markino, Yoshio, When I Was a Child, pp. 215-27. 



Closing of the Open Door 41 

smallness of their numbers they had so soon become 
thoroughly disHked gives an inkling of the strength 
of the prejudice that existed then in our western states 
against the oriental races. 

This unpopularity of the Japanese by no means 
checked their desire to come to America. In the year 
1900 our Japanese immigrants numbered more than 
12,000. For the next seven years those arriving direct 
from Japan together with those coming from Hawaii 
averaged about 1 1 ,000 a year. The Japanese authorities, 
who were fully aware of the American attitude toward 
oriental immigrants, tried to avoid the growth of 
further opposition by placing restrictions upon emigra- 
tion to the United States. The strong demand, how- 
ever, for Japanese laborers to work on the sugar 
plantations in Hawaii caused thousands to go there for 
employment. Once in Hawaii they were out of juris- 
diction of the Japanese government, and there was 
nothing to prevent them from going on to the mainland 
where wages were higher and more congenial work 
could be found. Japanese agents and contractors were 
not slow to avail themselves of this opportunity, and 
as a result an almost continuous stream of Japanese 
was poured into our western ports through this gate- 
way of the Pacific. 

Even this comparatively large number of Japanese 
laborers could easily have been absorbed in our large 
western states without producing much friction, if they 
had been distributed more evenly in different places. 
But California was the most convenient, as well as the 



42 The Japanese Invasion 

most attractive place for them to settle and as a conse- 
quence fifty-five per cent of the Japanese immigrants 
crowded into a fev^ of its cities and country districts. 
San Francisco, the chief port of entry, became their 
most important place of rendezvous and residence 
v^hile searching for work. This concentration of the 
Japanese in a small section of our country served to 
call attention to their presence and made their com- 
petition in the labor market more keenly felt. 

As soon as American laborers realized that the 
presence of the Japanese was making their struggle 
for existence harder, their latent prejudice against 
them as Orientals broke out into open hostility. Poli- 
ticians and labor leaders were quick to make capital 
out of this issue in order to promote their own interests. 
Racial differences were emphasized and race prejudice 
was appealed to until the economic factor was almost 
pushed into the background, and the problem assumed 
the proportions of a racial struggle between the East 
and the West. 

The active campaign against the Japanese may be 
said to have begun with the publication in February, 
1905, in the San Francisco Chronicle of a series of 
articles which in sensational language pointed out the 
dangers of this new Yellow Peril. Said the Chronicle : 

The issue involves the entire structure and character 
of American society and concerns the manual laborer 
not one whit more than others Sufficient has al- 
ready occurred here to make it plain that if Japanese 
immigration is unchecked, it is only a question of time 



Closing of the Open Door 43 

when our rural population will be Japanese, our rural 
civilization Japanese, and the white population hard 
pressed in our cities and towns. The Chinese were 
faithful laborers and did not buy land. The Japanese 
are unfaithful laborers and do buy land. There is 
all the difference in the world. They are driving their 
stakes in our fruit-growing districts where they intend 
to stay and possess the land. The people of California 
are determined that they shall do neither. And we 
are prepared to take that stand and insist upon it, re- 
gardless of the consequences to our fruit industry, our 
sugar beet industry, or any other industry. What work 
cannot be done without oriental labor, that work must 
go unperformed. Our fruit industries are important. 
Our land, our homes, and our civilization are far more 
important. And they are in danger.^ 

On May 7, 1905, the first anti- Japanese convention 
met in San Francisco and adopted a resolution protest- 
ing against the national policy which permitted Japa- 
nese immigrants to come to our shores and lower the 
standards of American civilization. About the same 
time the San Francisco Board of Education passed 
an action stating that it would be necessary to segregate 
Japanese from white pupils in the public schools. In 
the autumn of that year, the newly organized Japanese 
and Korean Exclusion League urged the Board of 
Education to carry into effect the policy of the segre- 
gation of Japanese pupils. The Board of Education, 
however, did not deem it wise to do so at that time.^ 

1 Quoted by the Literary Digest, Mar. 25, 1905, pp. 420-21. 

2 Kawakami, K. K., American-Japanese Relations, pp. 305-6. 



44 The Japanese Invasion 

Meanwhile the attention of the whole country was 
called to the anti- Japanese sentiment in California, 
which threatened to involve the nation in international 
complications. The American public in general mani- 
fested surprise and indignation at the attitude of the 
Calif ornians. Those who had been watching sympa- 
thetically the remarkable progress of the Japanese 
nation and whose contact with the Japanese was 
limited to their association with a few Japanese stu- 
dents or officials utterly failed to comprehend the 
situation on the Pacific coast. From their point of 
view an act of injustice was being done to a people 
who merited our kindest consideration. The Washing- 
ton Evening Star in the following words expressed 
the general attitude of the people in the eastern states : 

To the extent that there has been any actual outbreak 
of anti-Japanese feeling anywhere in this country, the 
people of the United States have occasion to be ashamed 

of themselves If the people of the coast are in 

truth engaged in any form of anti-Japanese crusade or 
are showing a prejudice against the Japanese, they are 
open to the emphatic condemnation of the whole people 
of this country. Our interests in the Far East, to speak 
commercially, are too heavy and important to be placed 
in jeopardy by a wanton insult of the dominant power. 
Our good faith as a nation is pledged to the observance 
of certain international proprieties. Let proper repre- 
sentations be made to the Japanese people that will re- 
pudiate the mistakes and follies of those who are now 
engaged in this foolish, dangerous propaganda." ^ 

^ Quoted by the Literary Digest, Nov. 3, 1906, p. 622. 



Closing of the Open Door 45 

President Roosevelt, in his message to Congress 
in December, 1905, gave considerable space to the 
California- Japanese problem and in strong terms 
repudiated the exclusion movement. Later in the 
month, after receiving Secretary Metcalf's special 
report on the situation in California, he sent another 
message to Congress in which he reiterated his former 
views and spoke of the injustice of discrimination 
against the Japanese pupils.^ 

This Federal opposition to the segregation of Japa- 
nese pupils had some influence on those in authority 
in San Francisco, for no immediate attempt was made 
to carry their segregation policy into effect. On 
April 18, 1906, occurred the San Francisco earthquake 
which caused the destruction of thirty-six out of 
seventy-five schools in the city. In the autumn of that 
year the Board of Education of San Francisco, claim- 
ing that because of the recent calamity their school 
accommodations were inadequate, ordered the oriental 
children to attend a separate school. When this order 
was issued there were ninety-three Japanese pupils 
attending twenty-three schools and it was asserted 
that, distributed as they were in various parts of the 
city, they could have been accommodated without 
overtaxing the capacity of any school. The school 
board endeavored to justify their action by pointing 
out the danger of allowing Japanese young men to sit 
in the same classes with white girls in the primary 

^The Congressional Record, 59th Congress, 2nd Session, Sen- 
ate Doc. No. 147. 



46 The Japanese Invasion 

grades. Since they did not make public the fact that 
there were but six Japanese boys above fifteen years 
of age in the primary grades at that time, their cry 
of the moral peril of innocent children served the 
purpose of gaining much sympathy for their cause. 

The Japanese on their part were so offended at this 
act of discrimination against them that they refused 
to send their children to the oriental school. Formal 
protests received from Japan through the regular 
diplomatic channels further complicated the affair and 
made it necessary for the Federal government to take 
a hand in bringing about a settlement. After con- 
siderable negotiations the San Francisco school 
authorities ended the difficulty by adopting regulations 
which defined the age limits within which alien children 
could attend the different grades of the public schools, 
an arrangement which was perfectly satisfactory to the 
Japanese, since it avoided invidious race distinctions. 
This compromise was agreed to by the authorities in 
San Francisco upon the consideration that the Federal 
government should take steps to stop the immigration 
of Japanese laborers.^ 

During the progress of these negotiations, the bitter 
feeling against the Japanese in San Francisco broke 
out in open acts of violence. Japanese places of busi- 
ness were attacked and wrecked, and assaults were 
made upon Japanese in different parts of the city. 
Dr. T. Omori, recognized as an authority on seismog- 

1 Kennan, George, " Japanese in San Francisco Schools," the 
Outlook, 86 : 246. 



Closing of the Open Door 47 

raphy, who had been sent to San Francisco by the 
Tokyo Imperial University to investigate the causes 
and effects of the earthquake, was stoned by a crowd 
of ruffians while engaged in his scientific observations. 
It should be remembered, however, that San Francisco 
at that time was in a disorganized condition and that 
the disorderly elements in the city were with difficulty 
kept under control. 

In February, 1907, Congress, in response to the 
demands of the people of California, took its first step 
toward the exclusion of the Japanese by incorporating 
in the Immigration Act the following provision : 

Whenever the President shall be satisfied that pass- 
ports issued by any foreign government to its citizens 
to go to any other country than the United States, or 
to any insular possession of the United States, or to the 
Canal Zone, are being used for the purpose of enabling 
the holders to come to the continental territories of the 
United States to the detriment of the labor conditions 
therein, the President may refuse such citizens of the 
country issuing such passports to enter the continental 
territory of the United States from such other country 
or from such insular possessions or from the Canal 
Zone.^ 

In accordance with this action President Roosevelt 
on March 14, 1907, issued a proclamation excluding 
from continental United States "Japanese or Korean 
laborers, skilled or unskilled, who have received pass- 
ports to go to Mexico, Canada, or Hawaii, and come 
therefrom." This regulation stopped the flow of 

^ Senate Documents, 61 st Congress, 21 : no. 



48 The Japanese Invasion 

Japanese immigration from Hawaii as well as that 
across the border from Canada and Mexico, but it was 
still within the power of the Japanese government to 
grant passports that would give the right of entrance 
into the United States. Japan, however, knowing full 
well that further Japanese immigration might lead 
to a direct act of exclusion, asserted its intention to 
issue passports to continental United States only to 
non-laborers, or to laborers who were former residents, 
or settled agriculturalists. This so-called " Gentlemen's 
Agreement " has been strictly adhered to by the 
Japanese authorities and has effectively stopped the 
immigration of Japanese laborers.^ 

In 191 1, when America and Japan entered upon 
negotiations for a new treaty, the people on the Pacific 
coast and especially in California demanded that the 
treaty should expressly provide for the exclusion of 
Japanese laborers. The American government, how- 
ever, thought it unnecessary to subject Japan to this 
humiliation, since the problem was being satisfactorily 
solved by a voluntary agreement. The following note, 

^ The Commissioner General of Immigration in his report for 
the year 1909 (p. 121) expressed the following opinion about the 
"Agreement " : " The experiment certainly with the cooperation 
of the Japanese government, much more completely accomplished 
the exclusion of Japanese laborers, as defined in the regulations 
putting the arrangement into effect than have the Chinese ex- 
clusion laws ever operated to prevent the immigration of Chinese 
laborers as defined in such laws, and is working at this moment 
with a greater degree of relative success." 

Mr. Tokutomi in an article in the Kokumin Shimhtin of Dec. 
26, 1914, said that " the 'Agreement ' has made it almost as diffi- 
cult to get to America as it is to get to heaven." 



Closing of the Open Door 49 

issued by the Japanese Ambassador at Washington, 
reasserted Japan's willingness to continue her policy 
of restriction of emigration and still stands as the only 
barrier in the way of our invasion by hordes of 
Japanese laborers : 

In proceeding this day to the signature of the Treaty 
of Commerce and Navigation between Japan and the 
United States, the undersigned, Japanese Ambassador 
in Washington, duly authorized by his government, has 
the honor to declare that the Imperial Japanese Govern- 
ment are fully prepared to maintain with equal effec- 
tiveness the limitation and control which they have for 
the past three years exercised in regulation of the emi- 
gration of laborers to the United States.^ 

In such a manner has the door of the United States 
been closed to Japanese laborers. As far as external 
appearances were concerned, the door was not slammed 
in their faces as it was in the case of the Chinese in 
1882 when actual exclusion laws were enacted. It is 
nevertheless well known that all diplomatic negotia- 
tions were at a deadlock before the Japanese very 
cleverly got out of the difficulty by adopting a policy 
which proved satisfactory to America and at the same 
time did not cut them off entirely from the privilege 
of immigration to this country. In discussions of the 
Japanese immigration problem, it does not always seem 
to be clearly recognized that the existing agreement 
applies only to unskilled laborers and that with the 
exception of this one class there is no bar to the 

1 Treaties, Conventions, and Agreements between the United 
States of America and Other Powers, vol. 3, p. 82. 



50 The Japanese Invasion 

entrance of Japanese into the United States. A glance 
at the accompanying table will reveal the fact that since 
1909, when the effects of the agreement were first seen, 
there has been a gradual increase in the number of 
Japanese immigrants until now more are landing on 
the Pacific coast than arrived twelve years ago when 
matters first reached a crisis. 

NUMBER OF JAPANESE ARRIVALS^ 



Year 


Continental U.S. 


Hawaii 


Total 


1902 


5.325 


9,130 


14,455 


1903 


6,990 


13,051 


20,041 


1904 


7771 


6,611 


14,382 


1905 


4,319 


6,702 


11,021 


1906 


5,178 


9,065 


14,243 


1907 


10,230 


20,415 


30,645 


1908 


9,544 


8,694 


18,238 


1909 


2,432 


1,493 


3,925 


1910 


2,598 


1,527 


4,125 


1911 


4,282 


2,159 


6,441 


1912 


5,358 


3,231 


8,589 


1913 


6,771 


4,901 


11,672 


1914 


8,462 


4,554 


13,016 


1915 


9,029 


3,208 


12,237 


1916 


9,100 


3,607 


12,707 



While it is true that the Japanese authorities are 
living up to their agreement in regard to the restriction 
of the emigration of laborers, it is also true that the 
Japanese are still achieving their purpose of main- 
taining the open door into the United States. The 
exclusion agitation has simply resulted in raising the 

1 Taken from Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Immi- 
gration of tlie United States. 



Closing of the Open Door 51 

standard of Japanese immigrants instead of barring 
them from the country as is often popularly supposed. 
The experience of the past few years has proven that 
the exclusion of Japanese coolies will not necessarily 
be a check to Japanese immigration. The industrial 
and economic conditions in Japan are such that thou- 
sands of the middle classes — farmers, shopkeepers, 
and skilled artisans — are eager to come to America, 
where opportunities for success are so great. The 
gradual increase of Japanese immigrants during the 
past five years would seem to indicate on the part of 
the Japanese government a tendency to issue an in- 
creasing number of passports to America as long as 
no determined opposition would make such a course 
inadvisable. It is also worthy of note that a large pro- 
portion of recent Japanese immigration has consisted of 
women, a fact which is making possible the establish- 
ment of families and a further increase of our Japanese 
population through the birth of children. According to 
the Japanese- American Yearbook, 3,054 Japanese chil- 
dren were born in the United States in 1914.^ 

^ The Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration, 
1915, classifies the Japanese arrivals during that year according 
to occupation as follows : 

Professional 511 

Skilled 509 

Farmers and farm laborers 1,896 

Laborers 817 

Merchants 637 

Miscellaneous 1,610 

No occupation, including women and children. .3,049 

Total 9,029 



52 The Japanese Invasion 

While this attempt to close the door to the Japanese 
has resulted in at least a partial failure, there is no 
evidence of a change of heart on the part of the 
American people. The public opinion of practically 
the whole nation demands the restriction of Asiatic 
immigration, whether it be from Japan or China or 
India. 

In 1909 Mr. Roosevelt gave expression in the fol- 
lowing words to an opinion which is now shared even 
by many of those most favorably disposed toward the 
Japanese : 

The Americans who go to Japan and the Japanese who 
come to America should be of the same general class — 
that is, they should be travelers, students, teachers, 
scientific investigators, men engaged in international 
business, men sojourning in the land for pleasure or 
study. 

As long as the emigration from each side is limited to 
classes such as these, there will be no settlement in mass, 
and therefore no difficulty. Wherever there is settle- 
ment in mass — that is, whenever there is a large immi- 
gration of urban or agricultural laborers, or of people 
engaged in small local business of any kind — there is 
sure to be friction. It is against the interests of both 
nations that such unrestricted immigration or settlement 
in mass should be allowed as regards either nation. This 
is the cardinal fact in the situation ; it should be freely 
recognized by both countries and can be accepted by each 
not only without the slightest loss of self-respect, but 
with the certainty that its acceptance will tend to pre- 
serve mutual respect and friendliness.^ 

1 Roosevelt, Theodore, " The Japanese Question," the Outlook, 
92:61. 



Closing of the Open Door 53 

The necessity of our placing restrictions upon orien- 
tal immigration is no longer questioned even by the 
Japanese. Our present injustice in their opinion con- 
sists in our discrimination against them, our closing 
the door to their people while holding it open to 
laborers from all the countries of Europe. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE PROBLEM FROM THE JAPANESE VIEWPOINT 

^ I ^HE Opposition shown to the Japanese immigrants 
-^ in America has stirred the Japanese nation pro- 
foundly, and has aroused such deep feelings of resent- 
ment among the people that at times war has seemed 
almost inevitable. The Japanese government itself, 
while maintaining its attitude of friendliness toward 
America, has, in its efforts to adjust the difficulty by 
diplomacy, followed a firm and aggressive policy that 
plainly recognizes the seriousness of the questions at 
issue. The more frank and outspoken among the 
Japanese have not hesitated to express their indigna- 
tion against America in words of open defiance. 

During the progress of the negotiations in 1906 to 
restrict Japanese immigration. Marquis Okuma, then 
not officially connected with the government, voiced 
the feelings of many of his countrymen in a telegram 
to the New York World which read in part as follows : 

Any repetition of the injustices against Japanese will 
seriously impair our warm feelings toward America, and 
our traditional friendship will be weakened thereby. 
Fair and just treatment is essential to maintain friend- 
ship. Repeated outrageous acts will not only damage 
American interests, but also disgrace American civiliza- 
tion America has no enemy at present, and it will 

be a thoughtless policy if America purposely makes an 

54 



The Japanese Viewpoint 55 

enemy by inflaming public opinion against Japan. The 
United States is the wealthiest country in the world, but 
it has not sufficient defense in the Pacific if the two 
nations are to come to hostilities. 

There is nothing more dreadful than crazy persons. 
The Japanese are a crazy nation in fighting, and will dis- 
play their madness as in the late war. The Japanese are 
always ready to throw away their lives for their nation; 
they regard their lives as lightly as they do the weather. 
On the other hand, Americans and Europeans attach the 
chief importance to money. Those who love money love 
their lives. Suppose the two nations, whose ideas toward 
death are fundamentally different, should fight. The 
final result is easily seen, and the understanding of this 
fact seems to be the cause of America trying to expand 
the navy on a great scale.^ 

Another Japanese, Mr. Adachi Kinnosuke, in an 
article in the Independent in 1907 on "The Attitude 
of Japan toward the United States," expressed himself 
even more frankly to the American public : 

Is the Japanese government a special institution es- 
tablished for the sole purpose of comforting an unrea- 
sonable whim of American labor unions, at the expense 
of the material interests of say 200,000 Japanese laboring 
class who may manage to come into this country within 
the coming ten years? Why not the same undaunted 
front which we had turned upon our friends, the Rus- 
sians, a few years ago? It is the pleasure of the Cali- 
fornian to place us on the same plane with the Chinese 
and with the extinct race called the Korean. And we 
ask for an exclusion convention and beg for the sweet 
humiliation before anybody suggests it. 

1 Quoted in Lawton, L., The Empires of the Far East, vol. i, 
pp. 362-64. 



56 The Japanese Invasion 

Is Japan, then, afraid of America? When a question 
of national honor is before us, we would not hesitate a 
moment to take up arms against all the gods and the 
devils, let alone an earthly power. This is no rhetoric. 
When we declared war against China everybody thought, 
ourselves included, and even the most enlightened press 
of that torchbearer of civilization called the United 
States, all thought that the Middle Kingdom had a rather 
light before-the-breakfast job; and today we of Nippon 
certainly do not think that America is anything as seri- 
ous a foe as Russia seemed to us in 1904. 

Some wise people, gentlemen in the Foreign Office at 
Tokyo, and some of your Washington officials, take you 
for innocent babies and seriously tell you that it is the 
national policy of Japan to keep her working people at 
home, in Korea, and Manchuria ; in just that portion of 
the globe, in short, where she is more likely to be called 
upon to take serious measures. But reflect for a moment 
upon this: We are supporting well nigh fifty millions 
of people on 190,534 square miles (I have counted in 
everything, Formosa, Sakhalin, Pescadores), sixty per 
cent of which are volcanic rocks unavailable for cultiva- 
tion ; while California supports not very much more than 
two millions on her 158,360 square miles ; we are increas- 
ing at the rate of about 700,000 a year, our Californians 
at about 28,000. Don't you think that our country may 
spare a few hundred thousand laboring class to come 
over to this paradise of laboring people and share in 
its blessings?^ 

There is no doubt that the above fairly represented 
the feelings of a large portion of the Japanese people 
when the exclusion agreement went into effect. This 
rejection of their immigrants seemed to them an insult 

1 The Independent, vol. 62, 1907, p. 1458. 



The Japanese Viewpoint 57 

which no first-class power could afford to overlook. 
After having made so much progress in western civil- 
ization, they bitterly resented being treated as though 
they were still ignorant and undesirable Asiatics.^ 
Both their pride as a nation and their prestige in the 
world were injured, and many felt that even though 
it involved recourse to desperate measures their 
national honor must be vindicated. 

The leaders of the Japanese nation, however, did 
not allow themselves to be swayed by public opinion. 
In accordance with their agreement, passports to 
America were refused to Japanese laborers, and every 
effort was made in an official way to maintain the old 
friendly attitude toward the American people. 

The excitement occasioned by the exclusion agree- 
ment had hardly died down before the passage of the 
California alien land law^ in 191 3 again brought the 
immigration problem before the attention of the public. 
This new act of discrimination against the Japanese 
immigrants caused another wave of anti- American 
feeling in Japan which threatened to result in serious 
complications. From the viewpoint of the Japanese 
this new move of the Calif ornians seemed entirely 
unjustifiable. Their part of the exclusion agreement 
had been carried out so strictly that the immigration 

iTokutomi, "America Forward, Japan Backward," Kokumin 
Shimbun, Dec. 29, 1914. 

2 This law provided that only aliens eligible to citizenship under 
the laws of the United States could possess land in the state. 
Since the Japanese are not eligible to citizenship, this deprived 
them of the right to purchase any land, whether for agricultural, 
business, or residential purposes. 



58 The Japanese Invasion 

of Japanese laborers had practically ceased. The old 
cry of the Calif ornians that they were in danger of 
being overrun by Asiatic hordes could no longer be 
made. In the eyes of the Japanese this attempt to 
dispossess their countrymen in California was simply 
an act of unwarranted hostility inspired by race hatred. 
It brought them new evidence that they were still 
regarded as an inferior race, unfit to associate with the 
West on terms of social equality. 

Their contention with x\merica seemed to them to 
involve far more than an outlet for Japan's surplus 
population. They regarded it as a struggle for rights 
the possession of which were necessary for the honor 
of their nation. In the war with Russia Japan fought 
against European aggression which threatened her 
continued existence as an independent power. In the 
diplomatic struggle with America Japan was still 
continuing her efforts to overcome the domineering 
attitude of the West.^ How vital this struggle seemed 

1 Professor Ryotaro Nagai of Waseda University in an article 
on "The White Peril " {Japan Magazine, May, 1914) wrote as 
follows: "If one race assumes the right to appropriate all the 
wealth, why should not all the other races feel ill used and pro- 
test? If the yellow races are oppressed by the white races, and 
have to revolt to avoid congestion and maintain existence, whose 
fault is it but that of the aggressors? .... If the white races truly 
love peace, and wish to deserve the name of Christian nations, 
they will practice what they preach and will soon restore to us 

the rights so long withheld Any suggestion that we must 

be forever content to remain inferior races will not abide. Such 
an attitude is absolutely inconsistent with our honor as a nation 
and our sovereign rights as independent states. We therefore 
appeal to the white races to put aside their race prejudice and 
meet us on equal terms in brotherly cooperation." 



The Japanese Viewpoint 59 

to them IS revealed in the following statement by Dr. 
Masao Kobe, a professor in Kyoto Imperial University : 

If we let the California anti- Japanese movement stand 
where it is now, it simply means increasing injury to the 

dignity of our country If our government could 

not see the anti-alien land law nullified and naturaliza- 
tion rights affirmed by the American people, if there 
were any signs of weakness in diplomatic negotiations 
with the United States, China might begin to mock us 
and the Koreans might become disobedient to the Japa- 
nese administration. The position of Japan, then, is worse 
than the defeated nation in a big war. As Japan stands 
now, she is a badly whipped nation by the Americans, 
and the American jingoes tell us that the Americans 
would, if war started between the two countries, in the 
end whip Japan. But they have already whipped us. 
Japan therefore neither loses nor gains, whether she went 
to war with United States and got whipped just as the 
American jingoes predicted. So she might just as well 
go to war. Of course we do not like war, but do the 
Americans know what they are doing against us? 

If the Japanese have less human rights in any shape 
or form, and have to enjoy less life and property than 
any first-class power in the world, Japan loses her pres- 
tige in Asia, which position corresponds to complete de- 
feat after she dared to go to war.^ 

T This same view is expressed in a more temperate 
form by Dr. Juichi Soyeda, former Vice Minister of 
Finance : 

The fundamental question in the California land trou- 
ble is that of discrimination. It is a matter of honor. 
If for the purpose of self-protection the United States 

^ New York Japan Review, Sept., 1913, p. 163. 



6o The Japanese Invasion 

determine that no alien should hold land, that would be 
all well and good. The United States would have a per- 
fect right to do so, and everyone would respect that 
right. But when we alone are discriminated against, we 
feel that we must protest.^ 

From the Japanese viewpoint this is the crux of the 

whole problem. Those who criticize the Japanese 
government for taking so seriously a seemingly trivial 
affair, overlook the fact that an important principle 
is involved. The Japanese insist that they have devel- 
oped far enough in western civilization and culture 
to receive equal treatment in all their foreign relations. 
If they meekly submit to discrimination, it is a con- 
fession of their inferiority. Their national honor is 
at stake and so all the forces of their nation are united 
in a determination to win out in this struggle against 
what they feel is western arrogance. 

For more than ten years this irritating problem has 
been before the Japanese people. It has formed a 
fruitful theme for discussion both in the newspaper 
press and on the public rostrum. The constant reiter- 
ation of the wrongs endured by their countrymen in 
California has done much to arouse in Japan a public 
opinion if not hostile to America at least unfriendly 
and suspicious. Especially was this unfriendly spirit 
manifest in Japan during the closing months of 1914, 
when a large portion of the American press showed 
marked sympathy for China and expressed disapproval 

^ Quoted in editorial in New York Japan Review, Dec, 1913, 
p. 278. 



The Japanese Viezvpoint 6i 

of Japan's aggressive oriental policy. This was the 
added fuel necessary to cause their resentment against 
America to burst forth into flame. Their newspapers 
began to publish bellicose articles and even the common 
talk of the people on the street was about war with 
America. In the pamphlet entitled The Friendship 
of America for Japan, issued in connection with the 
visit of Dr. Shailer Mathews and Dr. Sidney L. GuHck 
to the 0?*ient, appear the following quotations from 
letters written by residents of Japan for the purpose 
of informing this " Christian Embassy" of the attitude 
of the Japanese toward America '} 

For a long time I was unwilling to believe that the 
Japanese people at large cherished feelings of enmity 
towards America, but the evidence that they are wait- 
ing eagerly for an opportunity to go to war with us is 
getting too strong to be any longer ignored except by 
those who are wilfully blind or wholly out of touch 
with conditions here. Not only is the "jingo" tone of 
much of the press very pronounced (I have been shocked 
at some of the offensive things I have seen in the Jap- 
anese papers), but the common talk is all toward war. 
— Kyushu, Sept. 4, 1^14. 

It is remarkable what a common opinion there is 
among the common people that war between Japan and 
the United States is inevitable. The jingoistic press has 
pounded that idea early and late until the people are 
coming to believe it. — Central Japan, Oct. 7, 1914- 

You cannot fail to have recognized in the Japanese 
press the tone of bitterness and irritation that charac- 

1 For obvious reasons these quotations were published in the 
pamphlet unsigned. 



62 The Japanese Invasion 

terizes many of their articles on American- Japanese re- 
lations, and also the fact that they tend to put a sinister 
interpretation on many of the acts of our government 
and of individual Americans. I find unmistakable evi- 
dence of the v^^idely spread feeling of irritation and re- 
sentment. — Kyoto, Nov. p, 1914. 

I regret to say that the campaign of virulence against 
the United States still goes on in the vernacular press, 
and since the outbreak of war in Europe seems to be 
more bitter than ever. That this is not my opinion alone 
you v^ill see from the clippings shov^^ing protests from 
both Japan and America. It is the same thing that went 
on for some time before the rupture of relations with 
Russia, and I fear it will lead to trouble again unless 
the people of Japan be given an opportunity of knowing 
the other side. — Tokyo, Nov. 16, 1914. 

This series of quotations is closed with the following 
frank statement written by a Japanese of international 
standing : 

I am indeed sorry to say that a strong undercurrent 
of anti-American sentiment is flowing in Japan and it 
may burst out at any opportunity. It is not simply an 
eflfect of the California question, but the more powerful 
and irritating cause lies in China. Concession after con- 
cession made to America by China, and a most irritating 
one, a proposal of conceding a naval station for America 
in Fukien (opposite Formosa), are causing suspicion and 
resentment against America to grow without a check. 

In spite of all this outcry against America, it would 
be a mistake to suppose that this unfriendly attitude 
is characteristic of all Japan. Many Japanese recog- 
nize that there are two sides to the immigration 



The Japanese Viewpoint 63 

problem. They willingly admit that the economic 
and racial questions involved offer difficulties that 
cannot be settled in any offhand way. Unmoved by 
the popular clamor for drastic measures they are seek- 
ing to promote a better understanding of the real issue 
involved in their international relations. Some of these 
Japanese leaders are moved by a genuine friendship 
for America. Others have at heart only the economic 
welfare of their country. But whatever their motives 
they believe that a peaceful solution of the difficulty 
can and must be found. 

It is not at all unusual for influential Japanese in 
their discussions of the American- Japanese problem 
to place a large share of the blame upon the immigrants 
themselves. Dr. Soyeda and Mr. Kamiya, two promi- 
nent Japanese who were sent to America to investigate 
conditions in California and to study American senti- 
ment, gave this advice to their countrymen : 

There is much to be done by the Japanese themselves 
both in America and at home. In the first place those 
who are already in the States must strive more and more 
for assimilation with the people and observance of the 
laws and customs of the land. They must work stren- 
uously to remedy their faults and do nothing to startle 
and irritate the people with whom they are living. Noth- 
ing must be done which would furnish material for at- 
tack, but any criticism, if well founded and reasonable, 
must be welcomed 

A part of the unnecessary expenses incurred by the 
Japanese for clothes and food might far better be used 
for the betterment of their dwellings and sanitation. 



64 The Japanese Invasion 

Their living in segregation or near the Chinese and fre- 
quenting Chinese gambHng houses must be stopped, while 
more church-going and rest on Sundays should be en- 
couraged. Noisy Buddhistic rituals, playing of samisens, 
keeping of tea-houses which arouse opposiiion and afford 
room for criticism might better be avoided. Studying the 
language, customs, and manners of the Americans, and 
closer intercourse especially among the women and chil- 
dren will go far towards bringing about a better under- 
standing. A better use of savings could be made by 
means of credit associations, and opening public halls 
and libraries for the common benefit will do much toward 
mental and moral improvement. Every effort must be 
made to cast off the old undesirable customs and to adapt 
themselves to the new environment, so far as it is re- 
quired by decency and courtesy.^ 

The above represents an attitude toward the problem 
that is becoming more usual among well-informed 
Japanese. Their leaders who investigate actual con- 
ditions see that many of the Japanese immigrants are 
more or less uneducated laborers who would not be 
regarded as desirable associates even by the better class 
of Japanese themselves. Consequently, while they 
regret the prejudice that exists against their people, 
they do not condemn the Americans wholesale as acting 
in an entirely unreasonable way. One of Japan's 
leading business men, Mr. K. Otani, who has been a 
frequent visitor to America, frankly said : 

The majority of Japanese working in America are 
without education and cannot adapt themselves to the 

^ Soyeda, J., and Kamiya, A Survey of the Japanese Question 
in California, 1913, pp. 12-13. 



The Japanese Viezvpoint 65 

customs of their new country. They cannot associate 
on equal terms with their new friends. Such being the 
case, only the lowest section of the Japanese are being 
discriminated against or excluded in America. The more 
respectable classes of Japanese are well treated and re- 
spected by the Americans. It is a striking illustration of 
this fact that there has been no anti-Japanese movement 
in Chicago or New York. In California and other Pacific 
coast states only has unfriendliness been shown toward 
our people. This is because many Japanese in those re- 
gions are unworthy.^ 

It is worthy of note that articles of this nature are 
found not only in books intended for American readers, 
but are quite frequently published in Japanese periodi- 
cals. When a Japanese who has traveled in America 
returns to Japan, the question upon which he is asked 
to talk and write most frequently is the condition of 
the Japanese immigrants. Usually these reports 
frankly recognize the harm that is being done Japan's 
reputation by the large number of low-class Japanese 
in California. They admit that the indiscriminate 
immigration in the past was a serious mistake and they 
urge the Japanese government to send worthy men to 
America who will be a credit to their country. 

Some influential Japanese writers are taking the 
viewpoint that the problem can be settled best in a 
peaceful way and that upon the Japanese in America 
rests a large share of the responsibility of bringing this 
about. Dr. Ukita, in an article in the Taiyo, May, 
19 1 3, said that the right of naturalization which the 

1 Japan's Message to America, p. 62. 



66 The Japanese Invasion 

Japanese are demanding can best be gained if the Japa- 
nese immigrants will give due regard to the following 
points : ( i ) They must resolve to reside permanently 
in America. (2) They must not segregate themselves 
in separate communities, but must associate with the 
Americans freely. (3) They must try to adopt the 
manners and customs of the Americans. (4) They 
must have high regard for the American form of 
government. (5) They must endeavor to become 
faithful and loyal Americans. 

This aspect of the problem, however, has not as yet 
been emphasized sufficiently to modify to any great 
extent the attitude of the Japanese people. In general 
they simply regard the discrimination against their 
immigrants as a reflection upon their national honor, 
without giving due consideration to all the different 
factors involved. The racial and national aspects of 
the problem are the only ones they are willing to see. 
America, they believe, has treated their nation unjustly. 
The first and important thing to be insisted upon is 
their rights, and as long as these are being disregarded 
they are in no mood to consider the whole situation 
calmly. The present view of many intelligent Japanese 
is thus summed up by Dr. S. Suyehiro, professor in the 
law school of Kyoto Imperial University: 

In this condition of affairs it is only a question of 
time when our people in California will be entirely wiped 
out, with which the anti-Japanese elements in the state 
should be contented. But far from that they want to 
destroy Japanese industry there as quickly as possible; 



The Japanese Viewpoint 67 

hence the enactment of the Alien Land Law. Further, 
there are rumors that a bill for depriving us of our right 
of leasing agricultural land will be introduced to the 
state legislature next year. They have already smitten 
us on our right cheek ; now they seem to demand of us 
to turn our left to them. What would America do if 
she were Japan? Would she endure all this discrimi- 
nation and humiliation without a murmur ? I for one do 
not think that the self-assertive Americans would submit 
to such treatment as we are receiving at their hands. 

We are a peace-loving nation. Our endurance has 
stood the successive tests of the Manchurian railway 
question, the school affair, the immigration flurry, the 
California land law dispute ; it will stand more because 
we are bent on the maintenance of peace. But with a 
view to a speedy and amicable settlement of the out- 
standing complication, we claim that America accede to 
one of the two alternatives — the granting of the right 
of naturalization to the Japanese, or the conclusion of 
a treaty to guarantee their rights of owning land or of 
leasing farms. I venture to say this is no extravagant 
claim. Justice demands that America shall treat the Jap- 
anese on equal terms with European immigrants, since 
she has permitted the former to enter and live on her 
land. If it is a question of granting such rights tO' mil- 
lions of Japanese, it may be too serious for America to 
consent ; but it is a matter that involves only 90,000 res- 
idents. Is she still reluctant to comply with our claim? 
If she rejects it, I am afraid that the day will come when 
our friendship toward her shall cease.^ 

^Japan's Message to America, pp. 68-69. A similar view was 
expressed in an editorial on the Japanese-American problem in 
Kahoku Shimpo, Sendai, Dec. 6, 1914. Mr. Oshikawa in the 
Michi, Dec, 1914, says that " for a solution of the American prob- 
lem we must not depend upon diplomacy but upon the actual 
power of the country." 



CHAPTER V 



THE JAPANESE MENACE 



>> 



A NY attempt to interpret the present status of 
-^ ^ American public opinion toward the Japanese 
must give due recognition to the fact that no unanimity 
of opinion exists. America is not a united nation with 
a sufficiently fixed national policy to dominate the 
whole country. In regard to most of our national 
problems there are sectional differences of opinion 
which are likely to render national policies unstable. 
Consequently, the sweeping statements that are so 
frequently made regarding America's friendliness for 
or hostility toward the Japanese are entirely mislead- 
ing to both parties concerned. As a matter of fact 
public opinion in different localities varies from open 
hostility to admiration, depending upon the nature of 
the contact with the Japanese and also upon what is 
known about them through the various sources of 
information. Moreover, it is also true that widely 
divergent attitudes may be found in the same com- 
munity or even in the same individual. Thus admira- 
tion and fear are frequently found side by side. It is 
often difficult to decide which is our predominating 
attitude until something happens to bring our latent 
feelings to the surface. 

Americans who have returned home after a long 
68 



The Japanese "Menace" 69 

residence in Japan have sometimes experienced a revul- 
sion of feeling against Japanese residing in the West. 
While in Japan, the Japanese peculiarities never struck 
their attention because they were the common thing, 
but here they diverge so much from the usual type that 
they seem objectionable. Even missionaries, noted for 
their kindly feelings for the Japanese, have confessed 
that it is difficult for them to maintain this same atti- 
tude toward the Japanese whom they chance to meet 
while home on furlough. Prestige and prejudice are 
in fact not far apart. One attitude sometimes gives 
way to the other even when changes in the situation 
do not seem sufficient to justify it. It is the existence 
of these divergent and contradictory attitudes that 
complicates our Japanese problem and makes it so 
difficult for the American people to be consistent in 
their treatment of the Japanese. 

These divergent attitudes can be accounted for only 
by the fact that the presence of the Japanese constitutes 
a race problem which brings in all the conflicting emo- 
tions involved in race prejudice. The Japanese show 
such wide variations from our ways of appearing and 
acting that our elemental feelings of antipathy are 
aroused against them. This makes an inevitable con- 
flict in our minds when we attempt to judge them fairly 
according to their merits, and as a result inconsistencies 
appear in our dealings with them. How this comes 
about is made clear by Bailey's analysis of race preju- 
dice, which he classifies into race enmity, race pride, and 
race conscience. Race enmity, he says, is found chiefly 



70 The Japanese Invasion 

among those in economic competition with the opposing 
race on the lower levels ; race pride is more social and 
aesthetic and is a loyalty to race traditions which seem 
to be endangered by the encroachments of outsiders; 
race conscience appears on a still higher level, and 
while recognizing the existence of different racial types 
estimates them from a more scientific and humani- 
tarian point of view. The feeling tones that accompany 
these three attitudes he designates as " anger, fear, and 
love; or putting them into the language of attitudes 
we might call them 'hate, anxiety-obsession, and 
benevolent kindliness.' "^ A study of American public 
opinion regarding the Japanese reveals the existence 
of these three well-defined attitudes around which may 
be grouped our discussion of the problem from the 
American viewpoint. 

Without doubt, there exists among many Americans 
a feeling of genuine friendliness for the Japanese. The 
attitudes of antipathy and distrust, which are more or 
less widespread, must by no means be regarded as 
shared by all the people in America. It is very easy, 
in fact, to get an exaggerated view of the opposition 
to the Japanese, because stories dealing with that phase 
of the question make better news than facts expressive 
of our friendliness, and consequently get wider pub- 
licity. This attitude of friendliness and good will is 
based partly on our former tendency to idealize the 
Japanese, a fact which has already been mentioned. 

1 Bailey, T. P., Race Orthodoxy in the South, p. 47. Neale 
Pub. Co. 



The Japanese "Menace'' yi 

The novelties of their civilization and their great eager- 
ness to acquire our culture aroused a deep interest in 
their welfare. Their later victories on land and sea 
and their success in organizing their nation along 
modern lines have caused many to think highly of 
their ability and greatness. In American periodicals 
have appeared numerous articles on Japan in which 
such statements as the following were made : 

Japan is today one of the most thoroughly and highly 
organized countries in the world ; it is doubtful if there 
is in any other country such unanimity of opinion, such 
passionate devotion to the ruler, such eagerness to die 
for the sake of the country.^ 

While the Japanese stand on the same general plane 
of culture as the peoples of Europe and North America, 
they are distinct rivals with them for preeminence on 
that plane, by reason of the number of points wherein 
they are demonstrably supreme.^ 

It is difficult to take in the moral greatness of the 
Japanese whose Imperial line has never been broken; 
whose family Hfe persists through centuries; whose 
heroes, men and women, show a spirit of sacrifice that 
is the very key to the highest moral life; and whose 
virtues are so virile that they can appropriate within the 
narrow limits of one generation all the great liberties 
of our modern civilization and all the humanity that is 
embodied in the world-wide Red Cross society.^ 

1 Editorial, the Outlook, June 4, 1904. 

2 Buckley, E., "The Japanese as Peers of Western People/* 
Amer. Journ. Soc, Nov., 1905, p. 327. 

3 De Forest, J. H., " Moral Greatness of the Japanese People," 
the Independent, July 9, 1908, p. 87. 



72 The Japanese Invasion 

It is very natural that those who share views similar 
to these should be very indignant at the opposition 
shown to the Japanese immigrants on the Pacific coast. 
In their eyes it is not only an insult to a great nation 
but it is a shortsighted policy to exclude the Japanese, 
who seem more likely to make a better contribution to 
our country than do the immigrants from southern 
Europe. The efficiency of Japanese laborers, their 
adaptability to new surroundings, and their efforts to 
conform to American dress and customs, are pointed 
out as qualities which prove their fitness for American 
life. It is held, furthermore, that the West as well 
as the East will profit by the mingling of the two civil- 
izations. Our dislike of the Orient, they claim, is based 
upon our ignorance. A more careful study of oriental 
culture would deepen our appreciation and put to shame 
our spirit of intolerance. 

Ever since the rise of the Japanese problem in Cali- 
fornia, the Japanese have not lacked for champions 
among intelligent Americans, who, moved both by a 
sense of justice and by a genuine admiration for this 
oriental nation, have tried to overcome the opposition 
against them. The desire to treat Japan in a just and 
friendly manner has always been the attitude of our 
Federal government. Even when the differences be- 
tween the two countries seemed most difficult to adjust, 
this friendly attitude has been maintained. 

An incident related in a recent address in Chicago 
by Dr. Edward A. Steiner well illustrates the policy 
of our government. During the long negotiations 



The Japanese "Menace" 73 

between the two governments regarding the CaHfornia 
Alien Land Bill, Secretary Bryan and Ambassador 
Chinda had many consultations in regard to the best 
means of adjusting the difficulty. In the course of 
one particularly unsatisfactory conference, Viscount 
Chinda abruptly arose to leave, and said : " Is this the 
last word America has to say about the matter?" If 
Bryan's answer had been "yes," diplomatic negotiations 
would likely have been broken off and serious conse- 
quences might have occurred. The situation, however, 
was saved by Bryan's more tactful reply, " There is no 
last word between friends." ^ Further negotiations 
were resumed and the matter was temporarily adjusted 
upon the basis of friendship. 

The present attitude of our government toward 
Japan is well expressed in this sentence from a letter 
written by President Wilson to Dr. Shailer Mathews 
on December 14, 19 14: 

That the feeling of our government toward Japan is 
one of genuine friendship, I think you believe as strongly 
as I do, and any message of friendship and cooperation 
and mutual good will is undoubtedly from the American 
people themselves.^ 

This feeling of friendliness and good will toward the 
Japanese can be found even in California, the strong- 
hold of anti- Japanese sentiment. There is a disposition 

^ To commemorate this incident Mr. Bryan has had a bayonet 
made into a paper weight in the shape of a small plow on which 
are inscribed the above words. 

2 The Friendship of America for Japan, p. 32. 



74 The Japanese Invasion 

on the part of some of its citizens to give due recog- 
nition to the part the Japanese are taking in developing 
the resources of that state. Their patience and skill 
in turning barren wastes into fruitful fields are com- 
mended. Miss Alice M. Brown, of Florin, California, 
in describing the work of the Japanese in her com- 
munity, said: 

By their sheer pluck and wonderful industry they 
have changed the whole face of the land from barren, 
unfertile fields to the fairest of vineyards and straw- 
berry patches. And to do so they had to face tremen- 
dous obstacles which the white man never would have 
surmounted. Beginning with no capital they make the 
place pay for itself. They know how to live within 
their means, to live frugally, but when they are on their 
feet and their home is paid for, they spend for the 
American food and comfort for which they yearn. 

They are crowding no one out of the land by their 
industry; that very land would be lying bare and idle 
If they did not occupy it. The whites spurned it for 
thirty years and they are no more ambitious today. 
They want better land, which does not entail such con- 
stant, ceaseless effort to wring a profit from it. There 
is always a class who are jealous of anyone who works 
and prospers, and because of the peaceable, humble dis- 
position of these people they are doubly bold in their 
attacks upon them. It is the dog in the manger atti- 
tude. There is plenty of room in this great state for 
all who want land and who want to work. We are no 
overpopulated country like Belgium or Japan. We want 
people here who will till our s^il and make our lands 
blossom with fruitfulness. They are a tremendous asset 
to the community and the state, and if it were not for 



The Japanese ''Menace" 75 

the racial bias that darkens and poisons the mind, they 
would be thrice welcome. 

The Japanese are peaceable, law-abiding, tirelessly in- 
dustrious, home-keeping, moral, temperate, grateful, and 
generous. They require no policing, there are no dis- 
turbances; no woman has ever been molested. That is 
a fit test for their worthiness as a people. What other 
alien race has such a record ? ^ 

While such sentiments as these seem to be shared 
by only a small minority in California, there is an 
increasing tendency to admit the usefulness and effi- 
ciency of the Japanese in agriculture. Even those 
opposed to them on grounds of race admire the skill 
with which the Japanese farmers have reclaimed bar- 
ren lands and thus added to the wealth of the state. 
Without doubt the Japanese have made a secure place 
for themselves in the fruit industry in certain sections 
of the Far West, and since the fear of a large increase 
in numbers has been removed, the more intelligent 
Americans do not resent their presence as much as 
v^as the case in the past. 

The attitude of some of the leaders in educational 
circles in California is shown by the following state- 
ment regarding America's relations with Japan issued 
in 1 914 by the presidents and deans of the various 
colleges and universities of southern California: 

In view of the recent events which have tended to 
bring regret and distress to those persons who have 
cherished deeply the historic friendship between the 

1 Brown, Alice M., Education — Not Legislation, p. 4. 



*^(i The Japanese Invasion 

United States and Japan, and in view of the popular 
impression that a feeling of international ill will has its 
special source on our western coast and particularly in 
the state of California, the undersigned take the liberty 
of making public the following statement: 

As American citizens and residents of California, we 
wish to express our deep conviction that the manifesta- 
tion of genuine good will, happily characteristic of our 
relations with Japan, has been one of the most fortunate 
experiences of our whole international history. And, 
notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, we be- 
lieve that an appreciation of the great benefits accruing 
to both nations by reason of this friendship is firmly 
established among the thoughtful people of our coast and 
is rightfully a source of confident expectation that this 
friendship is permanently to continue. 

In this connection we desire not only to assert our 
strong opposition to any additional anti-alien legislation 
.... but we are also opposed to any and all anti-alien 
legislation of whatever sort, which is discriminating in 
character, desiring only to preserve to each country in 
friendliest fashion those best elements of national per- 
sonality which shall ultimately be of the largest mutual 
advantage. In this, also, we believe we are voicing the 
thoughtful citizenship of our state. 

Many of those most interested in the promotion of 
good will toward Japan feel that a campaign of educa- 
tion is necessary in order to overcome existing suspi- 
cions and prejudices. The most recent important effort 
to this end was the establishment by the Federal Coun- 
cil of the Churches of Christ in America^ of a Com- 

^ This Council represents thirty different denominations. The 
number of local churches in these denominations is about 136,000 
and the membership 17,000,000. 



The Japanese ''Menace'' yy 

mission on Relations with Japan. This commission, 
in addition to its study of the problem of the relations 
of the two countries, appointed Dr. Shailer Mathews 
and Dr. Sidney L. Gulick — 

.... to serve as a Christian Embassy to carry to the 
Christians of this land (Japan) the greetings of the 
Christians of America and the assurances that, in spite 
of certain appearances to the contrary, the real attitude 
of America as a whole is that of continued good will.^ 

This "Christian Embassy" made an extended trip 
through Japan during February, 191 5, and addressed 
large audiences in a number of the leading cities. The 
Japanese press gave their speeches wide publicity and 
in general commented favorably upon their efforts to 
convince the Japanese that a vast majority of the 
American people were not in sympathy with the anti- 
Japanese movement. After their return to America 
a similar campaign was carried on in this country for 
the purpose of developing a public opinion more favor- 
ably disposed toward the Japanese people. 

That it was felt necessary to send this "Christian 
Embassy " to Japan with its message of good will bears 
witness to the existence of misunderstandings and feel- 
ings of dislike which at times have threatened to rup- 
ture the friendship of the two nations. As would be 
expected, this attitude of hostility and antipathy mani- 
fests itself particularly in those sections of the West 
where the Japanese have settled in the largest numbers. 

For the past ten years or more the Calif ornians have 

^ The Friendship of America for Japan, p. 3. 



78 The Japanese Invasion 

felt that the Japanese were a menace to their welfare. 
It was their violent protest against the coming of Jap- 
anese immigrants that brought the problem to the 
attention of the American public. Through their per- 
sistence and determination the inertia and indifference 
of the eastern states have been overcome and a public 
opinion formed that demands the exclusion of the 
Japanese. In order to gain their point the Calif ornians 
marshaled every possible argument and appealed espe- 
cially to the latent prejudice that the West has for the 
Far East. A California editor wrote: 

Do the American people realize that they are now 
facing on our Pacific frontier what may easily become 
the most significant crisis which the western world has 
confronted since Thermopylae — a question not of policy 
or prosperity or progress, but of existence? 

Nothing can keep our Pacific coast essentially a white 
man's country except our continual determination to keep 

it so It is a question on which a blunder once made 

can never be rectified. The frontier of the white man's 
world must be established some day, somewhere. Un- 
less this generation establishes it at the Pacific coast no 
future generation will ever have the chance to establish 
it so far west, or to maintain it anywhere, except by war 
and permanent lines of garrisoned fortresses. The prob- 
lem is ours in the next few years in California, Wash- 
ington, Oregon, and in the Capitol and White House. 
The consequences are the whole world's, everywhere, 
forever 

Asia has found us out, too, and the flood from the 
Orient has started. Nothing can stop it unless we do. 
We did stop it from China because China was helpless, 
but that helplessness will not last long. It has been 



The Japanese "Menace'' 79 

checked from Japan by the grace of Japan, but that 
grace may not last long. And we may stop it from 
India because we do not have to deal with India about 
it. But the reservoir that is tapped is limitless. Lit- 
erally hundreds of milHons of brown men, yellow men, 
and bronze men would now like to come to America for 
the same reasons that the Europeans wanted to come; 
for they will come, just as the Europeans have come, 
if they are equally free to do so. And then — the deluge. 
The worst of it is that, temporarily and economically, 
we need them, and therefore some of our shortsighted 
capitalists desire them. It is a fair and empty land that 
awaits development, and it is capable of being exploited 
far more rapidly than the white man alone can do it. 
Industrially, the West can be full-grown in one gener- 
ation, if we will permit it, but not by the labor of all 
the white men it can get. The West can absorb men 
faster than white men are consenting to come. A de- 
liberate dog-in-the-manger policy is the only way to re- 
serve for future generations of our race the resources 
which we have not time nor men to develop ourselves.^ 

In the opinion of many people on the Pacific coast, a 
resolute stand must be taken in order to repel a possible 
yellow invasion. They feel that the coming of the 
Oriental, whether Chinese or Japanese, endangers their 
institutions. It is assumed that no matter how long 
the Japanese may reside in America they can never be 
assimilated.^ 

On the other hand, some Calif ornians deny that their 
opposition to the Japanese is a matter of race prejudice. 

1 Rowell, C H., " Orientphobia," Collier's, Feb. 6, 1909, p. 13. 
2Woehlke, W. V., "Two Aspects of the Japanese Problem," 
the Outlook, 105:480. 



8o The Japanese Invasion 

They place it frankly upon economic grounds, claiming 
that the white man cannot compete successfully with 
Orientals without lowering his standard of living. 
Thus a writer in Sunset said : 

California's opposition is not because of race-hatred — 
there is no racial problem involved in the determination 
to eliminate the Japanese from economic consideration. 
Candidly, California acknowledges that Japanese given 
free rein within her borders would become commercial 
competitors against whom the white man could not hope 
to struggle successfully, for the Japanese, through sacri- 
ficial effort, are capable of accomplishing greater results 
than the white man, ever eager for his own personal 
pleasures and comforts. One is willing to work, work, 
work; the other insists upon varying his industry with 
a little honk-honking along the highway of joy. One 
will pillow his head upon a rock, if need be, and rest 
content; the other insists upon the maintenance of a 
standard which refuses the rock. Tokyo may assert 
that her national pride has been pricked, but neverthe- 
less she knows that the real cause of the tempest is that 
her subjects figuratively have been picking California's 
pockets of profits and rapidly are attaining complete 
mastery of the communities in which they have set- 
tled.^ 

Without doubt, both economic and racial factors 
are involved in the Japanese problem. It is impossible 
to find a single isolated cause of all the friction that 
exists. Viewed in its larger aspect, it is the meeting 
of the widely different civilizations of the East and 
the West, with all of its disturbing effect upon our 

1 Dunn, A., " Keeping the Coast Clear," Sunset, 31 ■ 124. 



The Japanese ''Menace" 8i 

labor conditions and problems. Difference in standards 
of living that makes competition upon equal terms 
impossible, fear of being overwhelmed by numbers, 
differences in customs, language, and physical appear- 
ance, the ambition of the Japanese, which unfits them 
for servile positions — all these have in some measure 
contributed to the unpopularity of the Japanese in our 
western states. 

Not every part of the West shares equally this feel- 
ing of dislike. Southern California looks upon the 
Japanese with far more tolerance than does northern 
California. While anti- Japanese feeling exists in both 
Washington and Oregon, neither of these states has 
followed California's example in the matter of radical 
anti-Japanese legislation. Fruit growers and other 
employers of labor are often favorably inclined toward 
the Japanese workmen.^ Many sincerely believe that 
the Japanese are the best solution of the seasonal labor 
problem in the West, and protests are frequently made 
by large employers against the policy of shutting off 
such a valuable source of labor supply. 

But the voices raised in favor of the Japanese are 
not able to drown the clamor for their continued exclu- 
sion and for the restriction of their opportunities. In 
many localities the Japanese are regarded as unfit to 
associate with Americans. There is in most western 
cities a strong feeling against permitting even wealthy 
Japanese to live in good resident sections. The Jap- 

iBramhall, J. T., "The Orient In California," the World 
Today, 20 : 464. 



82 The Japanese Invasion 

anese Consul General at San Francisco, a well-educated 
and cultured gentleman, rented a house in one of the 
fashionable sections of the city. His neighbors strongly 
resented his presence, and it was only after consider- 
able negotiations that their objections were withdrawn. 
The high-salaried representatives of some of the largest 
banks and business houses in Japan receive similar 
treatment if they attempt to live among Americans 
who are their equals in education and income. When 
one of these managers rented a house in Berkeley, the 
people threatened the provision dealers with boycott 
if they dared to sell him any food. Shima, a wealthy 
ranch owner, known as the " Potato King," purchased 
a home in a fashionable part of Berkeley, furnished 
it in good style, employed a large number of servants, 
and prepared to live as befitted a man of his meanSw 
Indignation was at once aroused in the city, and the 
newspapers published insulting articles referring to the 
yellow peril in the college town.-*- In university circles 
like Berkeley, Palo Alto, and Los Angeles, American 
families as a rule refuse to rent rooms to Japanese stu- 
dents. In Los Angeles the prejudice against the Jap- 
anese made it impossible for the Japanese students* club 
to purchase a desirable site on which to build a club- 
house. 

This antipathy to the Japanese extends even to reli- 
gious circles. In California, the Young Men*s Chris- 
tian Association will not give the Japanese the right 
of full membership. As a rule, they are permitted to 

1 Asia at the Door, pp. 147-50. 



The Japanese ''Menace " 83 

attend the English classes and religious meetings, but 
are denied the use of the gymnasium, swimming tank, 
and athletic field. Fraternal orders and trade unions 
are not open to the Japanese, and as far as possible they 
are kept out of the skilled trades.^ This attitude of 
opposition to the Japanese has been manifested in the 
attempt to keep their children out of the public schools 
in San Francisco, in the passage of the alien land bill, 
and in the introduction of other measures designed to 
limit the opportunities of Japanese laborers in Cali- 
fornia.^ The public press has thrown its influence 
upon the side of the anti- Japanese agitation and by its 
inflammatory articles has done much to keep the 
problem before the attention of the public. 

This concentration of attention upon the Japanese 
question makes the people more open to suggestion, 
and so the wildest stories about Japan's designs are 
circulated widely and are listened to in all seriousness, 
no matter how widely they may be removed from 
actual facts. Even though the danger of an influx of 
a horde of Japanese laborers has not existed for the 
past ten years, yet the old fear seems still to remain. 
The coming of the " picture brides " is deplored because 
it means the birth of Japanese children who will grow 

^ Report of Immigration Commission, vol. 23, p. 163. 

2 In 1913, thirty-four bills of this kind were presented to the 
California legislature. They provided that the license fee of 
Japanese fishermen should be increased, that Japanese school 
children should be segregated, that liquor licenses should not be 
issued to Japanese, that Japanese should be forbidden to use 
power engines, that Japanese should not be allowed to employ 
white women, etc. — Asia at the Door, pp. 161-62. 



84 The Japanese Invasion 

up as American citizens. If it had not been for the 
fear of injuring the interests of the Panama-Pacific 
Exposition, further bills against the Japanese would 
probably have been introduced into the California 
legislature during its session in 191 5. The opposition 
to the Japanese in California may almost be said to 
have assumed a pathological form, and seems to have 
developed a phobia that is contagious and which does 
not require much basis in fact to support it. 

This campaign of opposition to the Japanese has 
exerted a wider influence upon the public opinion of 
the whole country than is generally realized. Mr. 
Holman, in speaking of California's dislike of the 
Japanese, said : 

Deeply as this is to be deplored, it is less regrettable 
than the fact that this seemingly localized manifestation 
is but a surface symptom of a deeper and more wide- 
spread affection which concerns not merely the Pacific 
coast region, where racial antagonisms are freely avowed, 
but practically our entire body politic, including even 
eastern centers of light and learning, where the solidar- 
ity of the human race is preached and the spirit of uni- 
versal brotherhood is most professed. For the candid 
observer must, to himself at least, admit that an obses- 
sion of prejudice against men of the black, brown, or 
yellow races marks with an unfavorable distinction the 
American people above those of any other nation, despite 
all our boastful pretension of belief in mankind's dis- 
tinctless equality of birth and nongainsayable right to an 
impartiality of social and political opportunity. 

It is doubtless part of our heritage of shame from cen- 
turies of wrongdoing toward the African race, and its 



The Japanese ''Menace" 85 

periodical manifestations will involve penitential repara- 
tion for uncounted time to come. 

But it is necessary to recognize unblinkingly that this 
ungracious and mischief-making spirit exists, and in 
greater or less degree permeates our entire people, be- 
fore we shall be able either to foresee its portentous 
possibilities for evil or to grapple intelligently with the 
Herculean task of formulating remedies even appreciably 
adapted to the outworking of its cure.^ 

It seems very evident that the past ten years of agita- 
tion against the Japanese on the Pacific coast, together 
with the aggressive policy of Japan both in demanding 
its rights in this country and advancing its interests in 
the Far East, have produced an undercurrent of oppo- 
sition that comes to the surface upon slight provocation. 
In a recent conversation with a well-informed Japanese 
official in America, I asked him why his government 
did not encourage the Japanese living in California to 
move east of the Rocky Mountains, where they would 
be made more welcome. He replied that this was a 
common mistake of Americans, who took it for granted 
that the anti- Japanese spirit was limited only to the Far 
West, and that, as a matter of fact, any settlement of 
the Japanese in mass in any state of the Union would 
arouse opposition. 

In support of this statement he cited several instances 
where attempts had been made by small groups of 
Japanese farmers to establish themselves in states 
where there had been no indication of any feeling 

1 Holman, C. V., " Our Insult to Japan,'* the Arena, 37: H- 



86 The Japanese Invasion 

against the Japanese. One of these attempts was made 
in 19 14 in Michigan, but as soon as it became known 
that the Japanese were trying to buy land, protests 
were made and a bill was introduced into the state 
legislature similar to the alien land law of California. 
Similar efforts were made by Japanese to settle in rural 
communities in Florida and Louisiana, and in both 
these states anti-Japanese feeling at once manifested 
itself. In order to prevent the spread of this agitation 
against the Japanese, their government has discouraged 
as far as possible all migration of Japanese laborers 
into our eastern and southern states. The Japanese 
authorities feel that it is wiser to localize the opposition 
in the West and not allow it to extend over the whole 
country. In the opinion of this Japanese official, almost 
the only places in the East that are open to the Jap- 
anese are the large cities, where a few can engage in 
small business enterprises or do domestic work. The 
four hundred Japanese living in Chicago are scattered 
throughout the city, and as they have established no 
business street, as have the Chinese, their presence is 
but little noticed. They do, however, experience diffi- 
culty sometimes in renting rooms and apartments in 
the more desirable sections of the city. Only last year 
a Japanese student and his wife, because of the pro- 
tests of neighbors, had to give up their lease of an 
apartment in Hyde Park within the very shadow of 
the University of Chicago.^ 

1 Unmarried students, however, find no difficulty in securing 
rooms. The Housing Bureau of the University of Chicago states 



The Japanese "Menace" 87 

While Japanese students, who form a considerable 
portion of the Japanese population in the eastern 
states, are given a warm welcome to our educational 
privileges, they are made to feel that they cannot share 
fully in our social affairs. In response to inquiries 
made in a number of our colleges and universities, it 
was learned that there was a strong sentiment against 
a college girl appearing alone in public under the escort 
of a Japanese man. There is perfect freedom in class 
parties and college functions, but the line is drawn upon 
any association that might be interpreted as a personal 
attention to an American girl. Even in communities 
where there seems to be no race prejudice against the 
Japanese, intermarriage with them is regarded as 
highly unfortunate. 

It is, however, the attitude of suspicion rather than 
dislike that seems to characterize the American public 
in general today. Japanese aggressiveness and military 
preparedness, the frank statements in a portion of the 
Japanese press that they are not only willing to fight 
us but regard us as an easy opponent to crush, and the 
frequent publication in our newspapers of alleged de- 
signs of the Japanese upon our possessions in the 
Pacific as well as upon our Pacific coast, have aroused 
a rather widespread feeling of suspicion. We know 
that they are an ambitious nation, and we are not sure 
how far their ambitions will lead them in their relations 

that American families usually prefer Japanese students because 
they are quieter and demand fewer privileges than do other 
students. 



88 The Japanese Invasion 

with us. An American editorial writer, in commenting 
on American nervousness concerning the Japanese, 
said : 

If the Japanese were not so disciplined in politeness 
they would be spilling their tea all over Japan in merri- 
ment over our fidgets. Our apprehensions are not only 
ludicrous but natural. They are unescapable. They are 
the tributes paid by an uncertain, amiable, unorganized 
nation which has no defined intent, to a resolute, efficient, 
organized nation which has its plans clearly outlined and 
well in hand 

Our imagination puts nothing beyond the ability of 
our bland friends. The Japanese fishermen and the Jap- 
anese schoolboys may be brigadier generals ; a tea store 
may be the headquarters of the general staff; Japanese 
submarines may be ready for assembling down in the 
sand dunes by Miller, Ind. ; Hawaii may contain four 
army corps, and Mexico a couple.^ 

Efforts of the Japanese to float one of their cruisers 
that ran aground in Turtle Bay were construed as an 
attempt to fortify a naval base on the Pacific coast. 
Upon the occasion of the visit of the American fleet 
to Japan a few years ago, it was predicted that our 
war vessels would be blown up in Yokohama harbor. 

In a recent effort to find out the real attitude of 
America toward Japan, Dr. Shailer Mathews and Dr. 
S. L. Gulick sent out to representative Americans a 
questionaire in which was included the following ques- 
tion : " What is the ground of the suspicion of Japan 
more or less widespread in the United States ? " Replies 

1 The Chicago Tribune, April 15, 191 5. 



The Japanese "Menace'' 89 

were received from more than sixty men, all of whom 
occupied positions of responsibility where they had op- 
portunity to be familiar with public opinion throughout 
the country. The following quotations from their letters 
will indicate the different views that were expressed: 

There is suspicion more or less widespread in the 
United States that the Japanese government and the 
Japanese people would like to acquire territory some- 
where, and that she may be looking to this western hemi- 
sphere for such an outlet. There is also a belief that the 
Japanese government some years ago entered upon a 
campaign of educating the Japanese people in the belief 
that a war with the United States was imminent. 

The ground for the suspicion of Japan more or less 
widespread in the United States is the fear of the expan- 
sion of the Japanese population on the American conti- 
nent, which expansion of population would inevitably 
result in Japanese territorial expansion. 

I would not say that there was widespread suspicion 
of Japan in the United States. I would rather say that 
there was a large amount of indifference and ignorance 
about Japan. Whatever suspicion there is probably arises 
from fear of mingling with eastern races and from the 
fear by labor unions of competition. 

There is no suspicion of Japan in the United States 
and there is no ground of suspicion except that which 
may be created within a small circle by the infamous 
yellow journals, or the labor unions of the country who 
fear the introduction of coolie labor. If such is to be 
considered a ground of suspicion it is wholly an economic 
ground and is not a racial prejudice or suspicion. 



90 The Japanese Invasion 

Whatever suspicion exists is based upon the following : 
low moral standards; their aggressive attitude as immi- 
grants in this country; their attempts to get control of 
strategic positions in this continent ; the militarism which 
dominates the national life ; the detailed preparedness for 
the recent wars they have waged; their industrious 
efforts to secure information as to the defenses and 
resources of our country. Added to these is the racial 
suspicion and antipathy which is general in those sections 
which contain the greatest number of Orientals. 

If there is any widespread suspicion of Japan in the 
United States, I am not aware of it. If there is any such 
feeling, I believe it proceeds entirely from a vague, ill- 
defined fear of the so-called yellow peril which has been 
permitted to creep into certain minds and has never been 
tested by any real investigation of facts. 

The suspicion of Japan is due, I think, largely to the 
feeling that the Japanese are commercially untrustworthy 
and that it is difficult to know when one can take their 
word about anything. With our habits of thought, this 
defect in the national character counts for more than it 
should and makes us suspicious of them even in those 
fields where we ought to trust them. 

Japan maintains a persistently menacing attitude toward 
us. She strains at a gnat in San Francisco and swallows 
a camel in Vancouver. The actions of Australia, New 
Zealand, Canada in matters of Japanese immigration pass 
unnoticed, but the local action of a single state in America, 
in matters over which the national government has no 
control, as fully understood by the Japanese government, 
action far less drastic, continues always open, and period- 
ically the Japanese government delivers to our govern- 
ment what is equivalent to an ultimatum. 



\ 



The Japanese '"Menace" 91 

The ground for suspicion of Japan, which is undoubt- 
edly widespread in the United States, is that for the 
purposes of her expansion she might desire to disturb 
the present status of the United States in the Pacific. 

As far as conclusions can be drawn from the replies 
received, it is evident that there is no unanimity of 
opinion on the subject. The minority who deny that 
there exists any suspicion of Japan in America seem 
to mean that there is no justifiable suspicion. Some 
admit that there is suspicion, but claim that it is not 
widespread enough to be called the attitude of our 
nation. Others believe that this feeling of distrust 
characterizes our whole country. 
y Our chief grounds of fear of Japan may be sum- 
marized as follows : ( i ) Japan's national interests run 
counter to ours, therefore we are in danger of acts 
of aggression on the part of the Japanese. (2) A deluge 
of cheap labor will lower western standards. (3) The 
entrance of Orientals will cause us to face a new race 
problem. 

However unjustifiable these fears may seem to be, 
they cannot be brushed aside as unworthy of our atten- 
tion. The sentiments that they create are real, even 
though the reasons upon which they are based may 
be false. All refusals to recognize the significance of 
these sentiments can only result in deception and in 
further loss of confidence. 

What, then, shall be our conclusions about the Jap- 
anese " menace " ? Is it an illusion fostered by military 
propagandists, or is it a real peril which we must sooner 
or later face ? To such a question no final answer can 



92 The Japanese Invasion 

now be given. The forces at work are so complex, 
the situation presents itself in such varied aspects to 
different observers, that any agreement about the 
future outlook is impossible. It may be said, however, 
that the time is past for us to be lulled into a feeling 
of security by frequent exchanges of honeyed euphe- 
misms. The custom of patting each other on the back 
has been carried to the point of absurdity by well- 
meaning people of both nations. The historic friend- 
ship of the two countries is held up as something so 
remarkable that it is sacrilege to suggest that it might 
be broken. Such talk may help in creating a kind of 
public opinion, but in so far as it ignores very evident 
causes of friction, it does more harm than good. If 
there really is a Japanese menace it will be made none 
the less so by refusing to recognize its existence. The 
issue does not depend entirely on our feelings of good 
will. We must remember that we have arbitrarily 
arranged the present status of affairs, so far as immi- 
gration from the East is concerned, to suit our interests 
and not those of the Japanese. The issue is therefore 
up to them. What their next move will be, no one 
can tell. It is only our thoughtlessness or abounding 
egotism that leads us to assume that the Japanese will 
never take up arms against us because we are kindly 
disposed toward them. Japan is an ambitious nation 
and very jealous of her national honor as well as keen 
to promote her welfare. Her immediate interests may 
prompt her now to cultivate America's friendship. Let 
us not be too sure that this will always be the case. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE ISOLATION OF JAPANESE IN AMERICA 

THE entrance of Japanese into American life in- 
volves radical changes in their old habits and 
mental attitudes. Their success in the new environ- 
ment depends upon their ability to readjust themselves 
to conditions far different from those to which they 
have been accustomed. The readjustments they are 
compelled to make are far greater than those which 
are expected of Americans who go to the Orient. 

No matter how much the foreign missionaries and 
foreign business men in Japan may try to adapt them- 
selves to their surroundings, they will still live in 
foreign houses, eat foreign food, and wear foreign 
clothes. They are under no economic necessity of 
adopting Japanese customs, nor are they supposed to 
carry out wholesale the process of denationalization. 
Even the missionaries who have resided in the country 
for more than a quarter of a century do not attempt 
by their manner of life to merge themselves unnoticed 
into the Japanese nation. The language may be so 
well learned and native custom^' so well copied that 
when occasion requires they can mingle with the Jap- 
anese without causing any friction, but in their private 
life at least it is assumed that American ideals shall 
be maintained. The children of missionaries are not 

93 



94 The Japanese Invasion 

sent to Japanese schools, for there is not the slightest 
intention of bringing them up as Japanese citizens. 
With but few exceptions, the foreigners residing in 
Japan in any capacity whatever have followed the 
policy of remaining as a race apart. 

The Japanese immigrants, on the other hand, are 
under the necessity of conforming to American stand- 
ards because they are competitors in our economic life. 
To the extent that they live in their own groups and 
retain their native customs, they are not only criticized, 
but their economic opportunities are lessened. In order 
to succeed they must make themselves as much like 
Americans as possible. 

While this is the same problem that all our immi- 
grants must face, it possesses peculiar significance in 
the case of the Japanese because of the widely prevail- 
ing belief in the incompatibility of the two civilizations. 
So far apart has the East seemed from the West that 
many have taken it for granted that any large mingling 
of the two races is impracticable. As Kipling says : 

Oh, East IS East, and West is West, 
And never the twain shall meet. 
Till Earth and Sky stand presently. 
At God's great Judgment Seat. 

For the popular impression that the Japanese dwell 
in a world of thought and action diametrically opposite 
to our own, such writers as Lafcadio Hearn and Per- 
cival Lowell are largely responsible. In their descrip- 
tion and interpretation of the Japanese occur these 
striking passages : 



Isolation in America 95 

The ideas of this people are not our ideas ; their senti- 
ments are not our sentiments ; their ethical life represents 
for us regions of thought and emotion yet unexplored, or 
perhaps long forgotten. Any one of their ordinary 
phrases translated into western speech makes hopeless 
nonsense ; and the literal rendering into Japanese of the 
simplest English sentence would scarcely be compre- 
hended by any Japanese who had never studied a 
European tongue. Could you learn all the words in a 
Japanese dictionary, your acquisition would not help you in 
the least to make yourself understood in speaking unless 
you had learned also to think like a Japanese — that is 
to say, to think backwards, to think upside down and 
inside out, to think in directions totally foreign to Aryan 
habit.^ 

Intellectually, at least, their attitude sets gravity at 
defiance. For to the mind's eye their world is one huge, 
comical antithesis of our own. What we regard intui- 
tively in one way from our standpoint, they as intuitively 
observe in a diametrically opposite manner from theirs. 
To speak backwards, write backwards, read backwards, is 
but the A B C oi their contrariety. The inversion extends 
deeper than mere modes of expression, down into the 
very matter of thought. Ideas of ours which we deemed 
innate find in them no home, while methods which strike 
us as preposterously unnatural appear to be their birth- 
right. From the standing of a wet umbrella on its handle 
instead of its head to dry, to the striking of a match 
away in place of toward one, there seems to be no action 
of our daily lives, however trivial, but finds with them 
its appropriate reaction — equal but opposite. Indeed, 
to one anxious of conforming to the manners and customs 
of the country, the only road to right lies in following 

1 Hearn, Lafcadio, Japan, an Attempt at Interpretation, p. 12. 



g6 The Japanese Invasion 

unswervingly that course which his inherited instincts 
assure him to be wrong. ^ 

Overdrawn though these statements may be, they 
are nevertheless based on striking differences between 
the East and the West that cannot be denied. That 
the Japanese immigrants have much farther to go than 
the European immigrants in adapting themselves to 
American w^ays, is undoubtedly true. Their language, 
habits of thought, methods of work, social customs, 
and moral ideals are handicaps to them in their struggle 
for existence under American conditions. Many West- 
erners have been so impressed with the contrast be- 
tween the two civilizations that they believe they are 
based on fundamental racial differences which cannot 
be eradicated. In their opinion, something deeper than 
social heritage is involved, and therefore assimilation 
with the West is impossible. The following statements 
taken from American periodicals present clearly this 
point of view : 

For the Japanese in the United States will always be 
Japanese. They will not become Americans. They will 
neither wish to merge with our people nor shall we wish 
to have them. Our capacious hospitalities are equal to 
the accommodation of a good many of them. They are 
clean, well mannered, and industrious ; better folk by far 
in many particulars than a good many other newcomers. 
But they are not our kind, and will not merge. They 
belong to Asia. Their hearts are there ; their interests 
are there. In this country we believe that they will 
always deserve good treatment, and that they will get it. 

1 Lowell, Perclval, The Soul of the Far East, p. 2. 



Isolation in America 97 

But if there ever is danger that any part of the country 
will be overrun with them as Hawaii has been, there can 
be no doubt that proper and peaceable means will be taken 
to avert that danger.^ 

The Japanese adopts our dress and manners, but his 
Americanization never extends beyond external appear- 
ances. The yellow and white races are as immiscible as 
oil and water. No forces of education or civilization 
can make aught but an Asiatic out of a Chinese or 
Japanese. There can be no assimilation, nor do they 
desire it.^ 

Within recent years there has been a tendency to 
challenge these radical statements. Modern ethnology 
is laying less emphasis upon biological aspects of ra- 
cial differences. *'The real variable," says Professor 
Thomas, "is the individual, not the race."^ Because 
of the wide variations that exist within a single racial 
group, it is impossible to get any general consensus of 
opinion as to what actually constitutes racial differ- 
ences. The fact that is coming to be more recognized 
is the similarity in the mental activities of mankind, 
which has resulted in a remarkable agreement in many 
of the fundamental ideas held all over the world. The 
customs of a people, their ways of reacting to given 
conditions, their peculiarities of manner which help 
to differentiate them from other racial groups, are 

1 Editorial in Harper's Weekly, Dec. i, 1905, p. 1699. 

2 McLaughlin, A., " Chinese and Japanese Immigration/' the 
Pop. Sci. Mo., 66: 121. 

3 Thomas, W. I., Sex and Society, p. 288. Cp. Spiller, G., 
"Science and Race Prejudice," Sociological Review, 5:346-47. 



98 The Japanese Invasion 

the results of social and not biological heredity. Race 
is no longer thought to determine types of civilization 
or the nature of moral ideas. These factors have 
grown out of the social environment and consequently 
will be modified as the environment changes.^ The 
application of this point of view to the assimilability 
of the Japanese is well brought out by Dr. Sidney L. 
Gulick in his recent discussion of this subject: 

That there are no psychological differences between 
East and West is by no means our contention. There 

certainly are Our general contention is that such 

psychic differences as distinguish the East from the West 
are products of social life, belong to the social order, and 
are, therefore, subject to rapid change. The psychic 
nature, however, is identical East and West because it is 
human. That which unites them is universal and cosmic, 
while that which separates them is superficial and insular. 
On first acquaintance they may seem inscrutable and non- 
assimilable ; in fact, however, there is no insuperable 
obstacle to complete mutual understanding and assimila- 
tion Old Japan, Japan before the advent of Perry, 

was apparently so fixed, and her mode of thought and life 
and reasoning so different from those of the West, that 
the contention of unassimilable race differences might 
have seemed logically and experimentally defensible. But 
that contention can no longer stand. New Japan has 
destroyed it, for she is rapidly assimilating our entire occi- 
dental civilization and thereby bringing her inner life into 
increasingly close harmony with ours.^ 

iBoas, Franz, The Mind of Primitive Man, p. 155 Thomas, 
W. I., " The Psychology of Race Prejudice," Ainer. J own. Sac, 

9 : 593 ff. 

2 The American Japanese Problevt, pp. 145-46. 



Isolation in America 99 

But this statement of the assimilability of the Jap- 
anese must not cause us to minimize unduly the wide 
differences between the civilizations of the East and 
the West. These differences do exist as a serious 
handicap to the Japanese immigrants, and are an im- 
portant factor in isolating them from many of the best 
things in American life. It is too early in the history 
of the contact of the two races to dogmatize about the 
rapidity and the success with which the isolation will 
be overcome. All we can do is to consider certain 
factors which will throw light on the present position 
of the Japanese in American environment. 

Obviously, the ability of the Japanese to adjust them- 
selves to their new environment depends to a great 
extent upon their mental preparation. How familiar 
are they with western civilization, and what is their 
attitude toward it? The Chinese, as is well known, 
still maintain so thoroughly their old attitude of supe- 
riority that they borrow with great reluctance from the 
West. The Japanese, however, have not allowed their 
dislike for foreigners to blind them to the advantages 
they may gain by learning the foreigners' secrets of 
success. 

One of the striking facts about the Japanese is their 
frank appreciation of western civilization. From the 
time when the late Emperor at the beginning of his 
reign in 1868 issued his famous edict in which he said 
that "knowledge shall be sought for throughout the 
whole world," the Japanese leaders began to revolu- 
tionize their national institutions. The patterns for 



100 The Japanese Invasion 

their wide-sweeping changes were found in the West 
and were adopted with a rapidity that surprised 
the whole world. The form of government, the 
educational system, the means of communication, 
the army and the navy, were modeled along western 
lines. 

This example set by the government has been fol- 
lowed by the people as far as economic considerations 
make it possible. Foreign-style business buildings are 
found in every large city, and it is becoming the fashion 
for the wealthy to build a foreign annex alongside 
their native houses. Foreign uniforms have been 
adopted by all boys' schools above the primary grades, 
and foreign clothing is frequently worn by men in the 
better classes of society. Bakeries, meat shops, and 
restaurants that serve foreign food are quite common 
in large cities and are well patronized by the people 
who can afford a more expensive standard of living. 
English forms a very prominent part of the curriculum 
of schools above the elementary grades. Students in 
even the secondary schools are required to read in the 
original a considerable number of the English classics. 
Says Dr. Nitobe : 

It is through the channels of the English language that 
Anglo-Saxon ideas exert a tremendous influence intel- 
lectually, morally, politically, and socially. In this way 
are the great leaders of English thought made familiar to 
us, and being constantly quoted they are perused both 
in the original and in translations. Several works of 
Shakespeare can now be read in Japanese ; Bacon, Emer- 



Isolation in America loi 

son, George Eliot, Poe, Stevenson, Longfellow, Words- 
worth, Tennyson, are names on the lips of everyone.^ 

It is thus clear that as far as the more intelligent and 
well-to-do portion of the Japanese nation are concerned, 
they are well prepared to enter sympathetically into 
American life. They not only possess some familiarity 
with western institutions and customs, but have a de- 
sire to adopt western standards of living as soon as 
their economic condition permits it. If the Japanese 
immigrants had been largely drawn from these more 
intelligent classes, the fact of the wide differences be- 
tween the two civilizations could not be regarded as a 
very serious barrier to their entrance into American 
environment. 

Unfortunately, however, the majority of the immi- 
grants have come from the lower classes, which have 
been only slightly affected by the transformation of 
modern Japan. One of the striking contrasts in Japan 
is the progressive modern government, on the one hand, 
and the medieval aspects of the smaller towns and 
rural communities, on the other. With the exception 
of the school system and the government organization, 
rural Japan has not yet been drawn into the current 

1 Nitobe, I., The Japanese Nation, p, i86. Professor Togawa, 
in an article entitled " Western Works of Literature, Religion, and 
Philosophy Translated and Introduced in Japan," enumerates a 
large list of western books which are familiar to the Japanese. 
He says : " The assiduity with which these translations were made 
and the eagerness with which they have been and are being wel- 
comed attest the attitude of the minds of the people who wish to 
study the natural characteristics of the nations of the world in 
order to enrich their own." — Japan's Message to America, p. 221. 



I02 The Japanese Invasion 

of modern life. The agricultural class, from which 
come three-fifths of all the immigrants, is the most 
conservative and backward portion of the nation.^ 

1 Report of Immigration Com., 23 : 8-9 : " Perhaps three- 
fifths or even more of the Japanese immigrants to the United 
States have been of the agricultural classes. The various city 
classes have been small in comparison. This is shown by the 
occupations of Japanese aliens arrived at the ports of the United 
States (including Hawaii) and Canada (from 1901 to 1909) as re- 
ported by the Commissioner-General of Immigration 10.3 

per cent of the immigrants for the nine years had been farmers in 
Japan, while 43.5 per cent had been farm laborers, most of whom 
were youths or young men working on their fathers' farms with- 
out wages, for farm laborers working regularly for wages have 
been relatively few. Moreover, 21.8 per cent, including women and 
children, had not been gainfully occupied. A large percentage of 
these were the wives and small children of farmers and farm 
laborers and should be added to the percentage given above in 
order to obtain an estimate of the relative number of the farming 
class emigrating from Japan. As opposed to the 53.8 per cent 
who had been gainfully employed in agricultural pursuits, 2.1 per 
cent were professional men (ph5'sicians, teachers, preachers, ac- 
tors, etc.) ; 5.8 per cent were merchants, grocers, and bankers; 3.8 
per cent skilled laborers in a great variety of trades ; 6.7 per cent 
common laborers; 1.3 per cent had been occupied in the various 
branches of domestic and personal service, and 4.7 per cent in 
other occupations of which fishing was no doubt one of the most 
important. Thus, the majority of the Japanese immigrants have 
been drawn from the rural sections of the country." 

Y. Ichihashi in his pamphlet, Japanese Immigration, pp. 8-10, 
has attempted to present the social and economic status of the 
Japanese in a more favorable light. According to his statement 
only 35.5 per cent of the Japanese immigrants have come from 
the farming and laboring classes. He evidently secured these 
figures by leaving out of account the large numbers of Japanese 
who came to the mainland from Hawaii during the early nineties, 
many of whom went to these islands as contract laborers to work 
on the sugar plantations and so were drawn largely from the 
lower classes in Japan. In the year 1906, ninety per cent of those 
who entered Hawaii were classed by the Japanese government as 
farmers and laborers. The importance of the early immigration 



Isolation in America 103 

Yoshida, in an article on the " Sources and Causes 
of Japanese Emigration," described this class of rural 
emigrants as follows : 

They belong to the lower classes of the Japanese 
community, if not to the lowest of all. They are the real 
cornerstone of the nation but they are poor. In this class 
of emigrants the most conservative, uneducated, and inno- 
cent persons can be found. The greater number of them 
being quite ignorant of foreign conditions, they are usu- 
ally cared for and transported by the so-called " emigra- 
tion companies." Farm laborers whose daily wages are 
an average of only thirty-two sen (sixteen cents) have 
hardly an opportunity to accumulate money enough to 
escape from their own group. The sole motive of this 
emigration is to make money, and nothing more.^ 

\ Because of the isolation and low economic condition 
of the farming class in Japan, modern ideas and meth- 
ods of work have not gained as yet wide acceptance 
among them. In general, they cultivate their land 
without the help of modern machinery. The ground 
is prepared in the most primitive way. Rice, which is 
the principal crop, is transplanted and tended by hand, 
harvested with a sickle, and threshed with a flail. The 
conditions of life, moreover, are hard. In proportion 
to its cultivatable area, Japan is the most densely popu- 
lated country in the world. Consequently, the farms 

of Japanese from Hawaii can be seen by the fact that more than 
37,000 came from there to the mainland from 1902-1908, while 
the direct immigration from Japan to our Pacific coast amounted 
to about 40,000 during this period. 
^ Annals Amer. Acad., 34: 38S' 



104 ^^^ Japanese Invasion 

are in many cases too small to give adequate support 
to the families dependent upon them.^ A life of un- 
ceasing toil and a low scale of living is the usual lot 
of the small farmers in Japan. Holidays with them 
are rare, for in winter and in inclement weather they 
must support themselves by some subsidiary occupa- 
tion. Their schooling is usually limited to the minimum 
prescribed by law, and their outlook on life extends 
rarely beyond their own community. The small farm- 
ers and farm laborers who have sought to improve 
their economic condition by emigration have therefore 
little preparation for their new life in America except 
their habits of industry and their willingness to put up 
with hard conditions. 

It is inevitable that immigrants of this type should 
show a tendency to segregate themselves in communi- 
ties of their own people where they can keep up their 
own language and customs. Difficulties of language 
would alone be sufficient to cause them to desire to 
dwell together. While it is usually said that the Jap- 
anese are more zealous and successful in learning 
English than some of our other immigrant groups, the 
fact still remains that forty per cent of the Japanese 

1 The cultivated land in Japan comprises only about seventeen 
per cent of the total area, a tract of land about one-third of the 
size of the state of Illinois. Counting the v^'hole area of Japan, 
the average density of population is about 280 to the square mile. 

Seventy per cent of the total population belong to the farming 
class, who must support their families on farms the average size 
of which is less than three acres. It is estimated that only three 
farmers in a hundred cultivate as much as eight acres. 

Cp. Porter, R. P., The Full Recognition of Japan, p. 260. 



Isolation in America 105 

in America speak only their mother tongue. Moreover, 
among those who are classified as English-speaking 
Japanese, comparatively few show much facility in the 
use of our language. As a matter of fact, the Japanese 
are notoriously poor linguists. Japanese students, who 
have had good opportunities to learn English, often 
express themselves with difficulty even after years of 
study. That uneducated laborers who have come to 
America as adults should find English an almost insur- 
mountable difficulty need not occasion surprise. Mr. K. 
Mikami, a New York business man, expressed himself 
in this way concerning his countrymen's lack of knowl- 
edge of the English language : 

I have no doubt — nay, I can assert — that if our coun- 
trymen on the west coast of the United States could speak 
and write English in their daily life and transaction of 
business and in association with their American neighbors, 
there would have been few, if any, unpleasant contro- 
versies. I want it, however, to be understood that I do 
not expect Japanese laborers to speak and write English 
with such excellence as experts in the language, but I 
do expect them to use English to show their American 
neighbors that they are appreciative of the language which 
is the only instrumentality for giving expression to the 
customs and manners of the communities in which the 
Japanese laborers live.^ 

There can be little doubt that this lack of facility in 
the use of English is one of the strong factors tending 
to isolate the Japanese laboring class. It is natural that 

^ New York Japan Review, April, 1914, p. 135, 



io6 The Japanese Invasion 

they should prefer to live in a group where their own 
language is understood. 

Economic necessity also practically compels the new 
immigrants to seek shelter in a Japanese community. 
Their best method of securing employment is through 
contractors of their own race who hire them out in 
gangs to those in need of laborers. Even after having 
lived some time in this country, they find it to their 
interest to congregate in ''Japanese quarters." Their 
peculiarities in diet, ways of living, and forms of rec- 
reation tend to draw the Japanese into racial groups. 
There must be business houses to cater to their demand 
for things Japanese. Lodging houses must be estab- 
lished for the accommodation of the Japanese who 
have no homes of their own. Japanese families enjoy 
a more congenial companionship among people of their 
own nationality. 

The Japanese, in fact, have tended to segregate them- 
selves for the same reasons that have led many of our 
European immigrants to establish themselves in sepa- 
rate national groups. The only difference is that this 
tendency has been accentuated in the case of the Jap- 
anese by the strong race prejudice existing against 
them. It is the outside pressure of a hostile environ- 
ment as well as the inner compulsion of common inter- 
ests that forces them to live in segregated quarters in 
most of the cities on our western coast. 

In San Francisco there are two districts which are 
largely given over to the residence and business of the 
Japanese. In Los Angeles few Japanese are found 



'Isolation in America 107 

outside of the two well-defined colonies that have been 
established there. Sacramento has a "Japanese quar- 
ter" consisting of five or six blocks. The Japanese 
in Seattle live and have their places of business in a 
section of the city which has been gradually given over 
to their use. Even in cities like Denver and Salt Lake 
City, where the Japanese population is not much more 
than five hundred, there is this same tendency to live 
in colonies.^ 

The Japanese, however, have never shown the spirit 
of exclusiveness to the same extent as the Chinese, who 
have no desire to settle outside their "Chinatown." 
While for social and economic reasons the Japanese 
find it to their interest to live together in groups, there 
exists also a tendency among the more intelligent and 
well-to-do classes to secure houses in good residence 
sections of the city. Indeed, one of the charges re- 
peatedly brought against them in the West is that they 
exhibit a determination to spread out over the city 
and country and live where they find it best suited to 
their purpose. "Far from being clannish," says Mr. 
Kawakami, "the Japanese in America endeavor to 
adjust themselves to their new environment, mingling 
with their American cousins as freely as circumstances 
allow." 2 

This statement is undoubtedly true of the best type 
of Japanese immigrants. The race prejudice in the 

^ Report of Immigration Com., 24: 251, 2y'7. 
2 Kawakami, K. K., " Naturalization of Japanese," North Amer- 
ican Review, 185 : 401. 



io8 The Japanese Invasion 

West, which practically forces t\iQ mass of the Japanese 
to segregate themselves, arouses also an intense desire 
among the better classes to escape from the odium that 
rests upon them as residents of the "Jap Quarter." 
To the extent that they have taken over American 
standards of living and regard them as more desirable 
than their old mode of life, they feel uncomfortable 
in their own group and resent the necessity of sharing 
a criticism that they believe they no longer deserve. 
The Chinese immigrants have seemingly never admit- 
ted the greater desirability of American civilization. 
Prepossessed with their idea that their customs are 
best, it has been easy for them to maintain group soli- 
darity. Outside criticisms serve merely to strengthen 
the bonds which bind them together, because they do 
not accept the criticisms as just or reasonable. While 
this attitude of mind prevents their assimilation, it is 
largely responsible for the decline of the feeling of 
hostility against them. By remaining in their own 
group and accepting the position in life accorded them, 
they have given the least possible disturbance to the 
communities in which they live.^ 

It must not be thought, however, that the more 
aggressive type of Japanese, who have refused to be 
confined in the narrow limits assigned them, are always 
able to escape from their former isolation by a mere 
change of residence. In extreme cases where prejudice 
against them is strongest, this isolation is effected by 

1 Simons, S. E., " Social Assimilation," Amer. Journ. Soc, 
7 : 559-42. 



Isolation in America 109 

the white people moving out of the community in which 
the Japanese have entered. More generally the same 
result is secured by refusing to associate with them 
upon terms of social equality, or by simply ignoring 
their presence outside of business relations. 

Even in such a cosmopolitan city as Chicago, where, 
because of the comparatively small number of Japanese, 
prejudice against them is at a minimum, the Japanese 
residents, with the possible exception of the students, 
are made to feel that they are not an integral part of 
the social life of the city. They are not welcomed in 
social functions of Americans who are their equals 
in income and business position. As a rule, the Jap- 
anese who are engaged in business do not have a suffi- 
cient command of English to make them acceptable in 
American social circles. Their vocabulary is adequate 
for their business needs, but when it comes to social 
intercourse they are handicapped by lack of facility of 
expression. It is noticeable that when the Japanese 
and Americans do meet in a social way there is a 
tendency for them to separate into racial groups. 

At the large Japanese-American banquet held in 
Chicago in the autumn of 19 14, a special effort was 
made by the Japanese in charge of the occasion to have 
the Japanese and Americans occupy alternate seats at 
the different tables. When all were seated, however, 
it was found that two tables were occupied exclusively 
by Japanese, while an undue proportion of Americans 
crowded other parts of the room. Of course this may 
be partly accounted for by the fact that the two groups 



no The Japanese Invasion 

were not well acquainted with each other, but a more 
fundamental reason was a tacit recognition of differ- 
ences in language and interests which made each feel 
more at ease with people of his own nationality. 

It might be mentioned that the same thing occurs in 
Japan in social meetings attended by both missionaries 
and Japanese Christian workers. In this case it is to 
the interest of both parties to cultivate cordial relations 
and a special effort is made to mingle freely with each 
other. On these occasions there is usually seen this 
same tendency to break up into small groups composed 
entirely of one nationality. Even though all may pos- 
sess a working knowledge of each other's language, 
there is a certain strain and tension in using a foreign 
tongue which makes one feel more comfortable among 
his own people. Besides, sufficient familiarity with 
the foreign tongue to make possible the understanding 
of jokes and allusions and to give skill in repartee is 
not often attained by either Japanese or Americans. 
At any rate even under the most favorable circum- 
stances, there exists a sufficient barrier to prevent com- 
plete freedom in social intercourse, and as a result more 
or less isolation is inevitable. 

In spite of all these difficulties in the way of social 
intercourse with Americans, the more intelligent Jap- 
anese immigrants cannot be accused of exclusiveness 
or a desire to perpetuate their own social customs. 
They are willing to come more than halfway in an 
effort to meet the Americans and to share in their social 
life. The great difficulty is that this process of assimi- 



Isolation in America in 

lation must be carried on in an unwelcome environ- 
ment. Instead of being encouraged to live among the 
American people, they are either forced to segregate 
themselves in their own communities or at least are 
driven in upon each other to satisfy their social crav- 
ings. This dwelling together in mass intensifies their 
sentiments and makes more persistent their race char- 
acteristics. An individual alone is not the same as 
when he is in a crowd of like-minded persons. For the 
same reason a Japanese living alone in an American 
community will think and act quite differently from 
his countrymen massed in one section of a city or 
living in a country district where Japanese predomi- 
nate. The most serious barrier to their assimilation is 
not the wide differences in civilization between the 
two races, but is rather the race prejudice which pre- 
vents them from entering fully into American life. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE REACTION OF THE JAPANESE TO AMERICAN 
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 

^np HE entrance of the Japanese immigrants into new 
-^ callings, the necessity of adapting themselves to 
different methods of work, their struggle for existence 
under strange conditions of life involve mental changes 
of great significance. The nature of their occupations 
limits their activities to definite lines and determines 
the objects of their attention as well as the class of 
people with whom they associate. For these reasons 
a study of the reaction of the Japanese to American 
economic conditions is important in any attempt to esti- 
mate the fitness of these people for American life. 

The characteristic occupation of the early Japanese 
immigrants was that of domestic service. They were 
attracted to this kind of work not because they were 
particularly well qualified for it, but because they found 
it an employment in which there was a demand for 
their services. Many of the Japanese who came to 
America at that time were young men so desirous of 
securing a western education that they were willing to 
do any kind of work to support themselves while pur- 
suing their studies. Their purpose was to carry back 
to Japan not a large amount of money, but an educa- 

112 



Reaction to Economic Conditions 113 

tion that would fit them for good positions in their 
native land. The work of domestic service was espe- 
cially popular among the poor student class because 
they were able to improve their English by living and 
working in American homes. Dr. Nitobe, in his de- 
scription of the Japanese in California in 1890, wrote 
as follows: 

The Japanese in California range generally from eighteen 
to thirty years in age, and represent by no means the labor- 
ing classes. Many of them are the sons of old samurai 
full of ambition and energy, yet without means to obtain a 
liberal education. As to their means of subsistence, there 
are very few who are professional men or who are mere 
drudges. There are two Japanese physicians practicing 
in San Francisco. Law students are debarred by statute 
from pleading in the state courts. Very few Japanese 
names are to be found in the college catalogues of the 
state. There is, however, an instructor of Chinese and 
Japanese languages in the Maclay Institute of Theology 
at San Fernando. The majority — we might say nearly 
all — of the Japanese in California make their living as 
waiters, domestics, and shop boys, while the stronger 
serve as sailors or coasters. It is usual with many of 
them to make an arrangement with their employers by 
which they are allowed an hour or two each day in order 
to attend schools ; this, of course, at the sacrifice of their 
wages. One cannot too much admire the pluck of some 
of the boys who, by laboring under unaccustomed dis- 
advantages, are still ambitious to carry home the learning 
of the West.^ 

1 Nitobe, I., The Intercourse Between the United States and 
Japan, p. 184. 



114 ^^^^ Japanese hxvasion 

Another writer, in an article published in 1897, 
emphasized this same characteristic of the Japanese 
immigrants : 

Most of the Japanese are employed as household 

servants and as waiters in hotels and restaurants 

They are generally inspired with a desire to possess an 
American education, and they have visions of some day 
attaining this and returning to Japan equipped to engage 
in some of the higher, more profitable occupations of Hfe.^ 

The reaction of an ambitious Japanese student to 
the conditions imposed by the work of a domestic serv- 
ant can be very clearly seen in an interesting article 
entitled "The Confession of a Japanese Servant,'* 
which- appeared in the Independent of September 21, 
1905. The author, a Japanese boy of the middle class, 
came to America determined to acquire a western edu- 
cation. Lack of funds compelled him to seek employ- 
ment soon after his arrival. He thus states his first 
experience in securing work: 

Great disappointment and regret I have experienced 
when I was told that I, the boy of seventeen years old, 
smaller in stature indeed than ordinary fourteen years 
old American boy, imperfect in English knowledge, I can 
be of any use here, but become a domestic servant, as the 
field for Japanese very narrow and limited. Thus reluc- 
tantly I have submitted to be a recruit of the army of 
domestic servants of which I ever dreamed up to this 
time. The place where I got to work in the first time 
was a boarding house. My duties were to peel potatoes, 

1 Bennett, J. E., "The Japanese on the Pacific Coast," the 
Chautauquan, 26 : 186. 



Reaction to Economic Conditions 115 

wash the dishes, a few laundry work, and also I was 
expected to do whatever mistress, waitress, and cook has 
told me. 

When I first entered the kitchen wearing a white apron, 
what an uncomfortable and mortifying feeling I experi- 
enced. I thought I shall never be able to proceed the 
work. I felt as if I am pressed down on my shoulder with 
loaded tons of weight. My heart palpitates. I did not 
know what I am and what to say. I stood by door of 
kitchen motionless like a stone, with a dumbfound silence. 

The cook gave me a scornful look and said nothing 

What would the boys in Japan say if they found me 
out. I am thus employed in the kitchen receiving the 
orders from the maidservant whom I have once looked 
down and thought never to be equal while I was dining at 
my uncle's house. I feel the homesick. I was so lone- 
some and so sorry that I came to America. Ignoring 
the kind advice of my friends, rejecting the offer of help 
from my uncle at home, quickened by my youthful senti- 
ment to be the independent, and believing the work alone 
to be the noble, I came to this country to educate myself 
worthy to my father's name. How beautiful idea it 
was while it existed in imagination, but how hard it is 
when it came to practice. There was no honor, no respon- 
sibility, no sense of duty, but the pliancy of servitude was 
the cardinal requirement. There is no personal liberty 
while your manhood is completely ignored. 

The unacctistomed work and the humiliation in- 
volved in the position of a servant were more than he 
could endure, and so he asked to be discharged. The 
reasons he gave for wishing to leave illustrate the lack 
of frankness and indirectness of the Japanese, which 
have caused so many misunderstandings with their 
American employers: 



ii6 The Japanese Invasion 



She wanted me to state the reason. My real objection 
was that the work was indeed too hard and unpleasant for 
me to bear, and also there were no time even to read a 
book. But I thought it is rather impolite to say so, and 
partly my strange pride hated to confess my weakness, 
fearing the reflection as a lazy boy. Really I could not 
think how smoothly I should tell my reasons. So I kept 
silent rather with a stupefied look. She suggested me if 
the work were not too hard. It was just the point, but 
how foolish I was ; I did positively denied. " Then why 
can you not stay here ? " she went on. I said childishly, 
" I have nothing to complain ; simply I wants to go back 
to New York. My passion wants to." 

According to his Japanese training it was his duty 
to bear silently his unpleasant lot. No matter how 
much his indignation was aroused over the way he was 
treated, etiquette demanded that his feelings should 
be concealed. Even when the proper time came for 
him to explain his desire to leave, he felt it was neces- 
sary to say the pleasant thing rather than to tell the 
truth. When finally he did leave secretly during his 
mistress' absence, his incomprehensible action was 
charged up to Japanese unreliability and was regarded 
as an additional proof of the tendency of the race to 
break agreements without any adequate reason. 

In all of his varied experiences as a servant in Amer- 
ica, he was not able to overcome his feeling of resent- 
ment against those who treated him as an inferior. 
He recognized the fact that he was a servant, but he 
wanted nevertheless to be treated as a man. To obey 
orders slavishly was impossible for him. He desired 



Reaction to Economic Conditions iiy 

a larger place in the management of the household than 
is usually granted to a servant, and at times even 
attempted to give advice to his employers. 

Once I worked for a widow lady whose incomes are 
derived from the real estate, stock, and bonds. She is 
economizing so strictly that often handicapped me. One 
day taking the chances of her good humor, I told her 
that her well-meant efforts are the misapplication of her 
energy, trying to save her pin money through the economy 
of gas bill and grocery bill in the old-fashioned way, while 
neglecting to avail herself to the "modern high finance 
scheme " whereby she may improve her resources. The 
reward of this speech was an honorable discharge. To be 
a successful servant is to make yourself a fool. 

One summer he secured employment as a cabin boy 
on a steam yacht where he was thrown into contact 
with people of wealth. Here he had his first experience 
with American tips, a custom which he despised be- 
cause they were usually given in an offensive manner 
that injured his feelings. He thus describes how he 
felt about it: 

I hate the rich people who display their wealth and give 
me a tip in a boastful manner. I felt I am insulted and 
I have protested. Sometime the tip was handed down 
indirectly from the hands of the captain. Each time 
when I have obliged to take the tip, I am distinctly felt 
" the gift without giver is bare." I, however, thankfully 
accepted the offer from a lady who give me the money in 
such a kind and sympathetic manner. A gentleman gave 
me one dollar, saying " I wish this were ten times as 
much ; still I want you keep it for me to help your study.'' 



ii8 The Japanese Invasion 

Indeed this one dollar, how precious I felt. Once a fas- 
tidious lady was on the board. She used to kick one thing 
to another. Of course I did not pay any attention. When- 
ever she scold me, I said at heart, " It's your pleasure to 
blame me, lady. I, on my part, simply to hear you. I 
am not almighty ; I cannot be a perfect. If I made mis- 
take, I shall correct. You might bully me as you please 
and treat me like a dog, I shall not object. I have a soul 
within me. My vital energy in self-denying struggle could 
not be impaired by your despise. On the contrary, it 
will be stimulated." That the way I used swallowed down 
all the reprimand she gave me. I, however, getting tired 
to hear her sharp tongue and hoping to be on the good 
term with her. One morning I have exerted an excep- 
tionally good care to clean her cabin. Right after I got 
through her compartment, she called me back and told 
me that I did not take a good care of. I replied emphat- 
ically with a conviction, '' I did my best under the circum- 
stance." But she insisted I must do better next time. 
Then she took out a dollar bill and gave it to me. I 
refused to take it. She thrust the money into my hand. 
I have thrown back the paper money to her feet. " Madam, 
this is the bribe and graft. I am amply paid from the 
owner of the yacht to serve you," said I. *'No, madam ; 
no tip for me." Without waiting her answer, while she 
seemed taken entirely surprised, I quickly withdrew 
from her. 

It is clear that such a high-spirited, sensitive Jap- 
anese vi^ould not fit well into American life as a serv- 
ant or, as he defines it, a "coworker with the Venus 
in the American commissary department." His ex- 
perience led him to the following conclusions about 
the effect of this kind of work upon many of his coun- 
trymen : 



Reaction to Economic Conditions 119 

Some says Japanese are studying while they are work- 
ing in the kitchen, but it is all nonsense. Many of them 

started so, but nearly all of them failed Many 

Japanese servants has told me as soon as they saved suffi- 
cient amount of money they would start the business. But 
many young Japanese, while their intentions are laudable, 
they will find the vile condition of environment in a large 
city like New York has a greater force than their moral 
courage could resist. Disheartened from the hard work 
or excessive disagreeableness of their environment often 
tempt them to seek a vain comfort in the misdirected 
quarter; thus dissipate their preciously earned money. 
Even those who have saved money successfully for the 
capital to start the business, their future is quite doubt- 
ful. When they have saved enough money, it will be a 
time that their business ability melted away or by no 
means are sharp. Years husbanding of domestic work, 
handicapped and over-interfered by mistress, their mental 
agilities are reduced to the lamentable degree. Yet ma- 
tured by these undesirable experience, most of them are 
quite unconscious of this outcome as little by little sub- 
missive and depending habit so securely rooted within 
their mind. It will be an exceedingly hard to adjust 
themselves immediately to the careful and shrewd watch 
required in the modern business enterprise, though they 
may be assisted by the instinct of self-interest. The 
sooner they quit the kitchen the better, though needless to 
say, there are a few exceptions. 

This frank statement of the experiences of a Jap- 
anese servant in America throws much light on the 
difficulties they face in their efforts to adapt themselves 
to work of this nature. Few of those who become 
domestic servants have had experience in such work in 
Japan. They usually regard themselves as above the 



120 The Japanese Invasion 

servant class and accept this employment only as a 
stepping-stone to something better. Those who are 
sensitive and ambitious bitterly resent being held off at 
a distance and treated as an inferior, which is the usual 
lot of servants in American families. 

In Japan, the servants occupy a lowly position, but 
they are made to feel that they belong to the family 
and share in its interests. Students in Japan, who 
supplement their slender income by working for their 
board and room in some family, may perform menial 
tasks about the house, but they are called shokkaku 
("table guests") and not servants, and are treated in 
such a way that they do not feel any humiliation. 

A striking characteristic of the industrial life of the 
Far East is the attitude of personal relationship be- 
tween employers and workmen. When Japanese are 
permitted to work on this basis in American homes, 
they often manifest a spirit of loyalty that arouses the 
admiration of their employers. A housewife in Cali- 
fornia wrote : 

There is certainly one splendid trait that Japanese 
inherit almost without exception, and to a greater degree 
than almost any other nation — that is loyalty. I could 
give a hundred instances of unselfish devotion and loyalty 
of Japanese servants that could be equaled only by the 
splendid record of the older generation of black servants 
in the South. One cannot treat them as one would an 
English, Swedish, or German servant.^ 

1 Farnham, M. H., " Mr. Ishiboshi, My Japanese Servant and 
Friend," the American Magazine, Aug., 1913, P- 75- 



Reaction to Economic Conditions 121 

Unfortunately the Japanese do not usually receive the 
kind of treatment that would develop this spirit of 
loyalty, and as a consequence there result misunder- 
standings and friction which handicap the Japanese in 
their efforts to make a place for themselves in the 
industrial life of our nation. 

Since the beginning of the present century there has 
been a change in the type of the Japanese immigrants 
which has brought about a considerable modification of 
their economic interests. The distinctively student ele- 
ment in the Japanese immigration has become over- 
shadowed by the large number of farm laborers who 
naturally seek openings in agricultural pursuits. Under 
the direction of small contractors and bosses of their 
own race, the Japanese have begun to spread out into 
the rural districts and secure work as seasonal farm 
laborers. While the Japanese had found employment 
to a certain extent in agriculture since 1887, there was 
no mass movement along this line until Japanese peas- 
ants formed a large proportion of the new arrivals. 
According to an investigation made in 1909, sixty-five 
per cent of the Japanese in California were engaged in 
agriculture, fifteen per cent in domestic service, fifteen 
per cent in business enterprises generally connected 
with supplying the wants of the Japanese communities, 
and five per cent were students, offtcials, etc.^ 

This tendency of the Japanese to take up farm work 
cannot be explained entirely by the fact that the ma- 
jority of the immigrants have been drawn from the 

1 The American Japanese Problem, p. 322. 



122 The Japanese Invasion 

rural classes in Japan. Race prejudice, which has 
limited their sphere of employment along many lines, 
has been an important factor in the rural movement. 
With the exception of employment in domestic service 
or in small Japanese business establishments, there are 
very few openings in the city for the new immigrants. 
About the only way for them to get a start in their new 
life is to join a group of their countrymen under a 
Japanese boss and hire themselves out as railroad or 
farm laborers. 

The hard, monotonous life of the railroad section 
hands is not at all attractive to the Japanese. They 
prefer farm labor and usually take the first opportunity 
to get transferred to that kind of work. While farm- 
ing conditions and methods are quite different from 
those with which they were familiar in Japan, the 
nature of the work, especially in the fruit and vegetable 
industries, is more congenial to them than to white 
laborers. The Japanese are peculiarly well fitted to 
do hand work that must be done in the stooping pos- 
ture. In regard to this Kawakami says : 

The picking of grapes, strawberries, and vegetables, and 
the thinning of beets and celery require a stooping atti- 
tude that is not natural to the Caucasian. To the Japa- 
nese, however, stooping or kneeling is not very difficult, 
partly because of his short stature and his limber body, 
partly because he was accustomed while in his native 
country to farming without machinery. In grape picking, 
for instance, a white laborer can pick only one-third of 
what a Japanese harvests in a day. The white laborers, 
naturally averse to this kind of work, reluctantly if not 



Reaction to Economic Conditions 123 

gladly, assigned it to the Japanese. If the whites were to 
be substituted for the Japanese, the cost of producing 
these fruits and vegetables would be so greatly increased 
that the growers would have to abandon the industry.^ 

In farm work of this kind the Japanese have made 
a secure place for themselves not only because they are 
so well adapted to such work, but because it is a field 
in which white laborers do not care to compete. 

The Japanese at present have very little to do with 
farms where crops are raised which require the use 
of machinery. Race prejudice limits the activities of 
the Japanese even in farm work. They have not yet 
been permitted to become serious competitors of white 
men in the kinds of farm labor that the latter desire 
to keep for themselves. What success they have at- 
tained as farm laborers has largely been due to the 
fact that they have organized themselves in groups 
under the control of a Japanese contractor who attends 
to all the business dealings between them and their 
employers. While this method makes Japanese labor 
popular among large ranch owners because of its easy 
availability, it deprives the Japanese of that personal 
association with Americans which they need in order 
to learn American ways of living. Their work in 
agriculture, which ought to be a strong factor in their 
assimilation, isolates them about as completely as does 
residence in the Japanese quarter of a large city. 

It is partly because of the prejudice against the Jap- 
anese in California that they have been stimulated to 

^ Asia at the Door, p. 136. 



124 ^^'^^ Japanese hivasio^i 

buy or lease farms and thus become independent pro- 
ducers. The Japanese are too ambitious to submit 
tamely to the limitations placed upon them. With the 
exception of the more ignorant classes which are unable 
to help themselves, they possess characteristics which 
unfit them for the position of servile laborers in the 
less desirable occupations. They are confident of their 
own ability to adapt themselves to their new environ- 
ment and are quick to combine to promote their own 
interests. Because they possess qualities like these, race 
prejudice has acted as a stimulus rather than as a deter- 
rent to those who are best qualified to succeed. 

Confronting a situation in which their economic 
activities were seriously restricted, they have tried to 
secure greater freedom for themselves by buying land 
of their own. Far more than the European immigrants, 
they have been made to feel the limitations of the wage- 
earning positions because their employment is almost 
entirely limited to the less desirable kinds of work. 
This fact, together with their ambition to rise, has 
been largely responsible for their aggressive efforts to 
secure land. The recent closing of this door of oppor- 
tunity to the Japanese in California has therefore been 
a more serious blow to them than it would have been 
to other immigrants against whom there is less 
prejudice. 

Outside of the western states, the most notable ex- 
periment of the Japanese in American agriculture has 
been going on in the rice fields near Houston, Texas. 
Unlike the ordinary immigrants, the Japanese who 



Reaction to Economic Conditions 125 

started this colony are well-to-do men of good social 
position who came to America with sufficient capital to 
buy at once farms of their own. Some of them had 
no farming experience in Japan, but were journalists 
and business men who, for various reasons, invested 
their rrioney in Texas land expecting to make it their 
permanent home. As far as possible their own coun- 
trymen are employed to supply the labor necessary to 
run their farms. Negroes seem to be so thoroughly 
disliked that they are seldom employed by the Japanese. 
In regard to their success and their adaptability to 
American conditions, Kawakami says : 

None of the Japanese farmers in Texas had ever seen 
such heavy machines or handled such heavy teams as are 
used on American farms, yet these colonizers, after a 
brief experience of a year or two, are already thoroughly 
at home with those instruments, without at the same time 
losing any of their characteristic individuality. Aside 
from their color, these Japanese immigrants closely re- 
semble the Americans. They live in American houses, 
wear American clothes, read American books and news- 
papers, and subsist on American food with a slight tinge 
of Japanese cookery. In intelligence and ingenuity they 
are not excelled by any ordinary American farmers. Their 
capital is not large, ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. With 
strict economy and vigilant frugality, however, they 
accomplish more than their American rivals possibly could 
with the same amount of money.^ 

As far as their adaptability to American occupations 
is concerned, the Japanese have not laid themselves 

1 Kawakami, K. K., " Japanese on American Farms," the Inde- 
pendent, 59 : 964. 



126 The Japanese Invasion 

open to serious criticism. They have proved themselves 
to be efficient in the lines of work in which they have 
been permitted to engage. Even their enemies agree 
that they are thrifty, industrious, capable, and ambi- 
tious. From the economic standpoint the chief charge 
brought against the Japanese has been their tendency 
to live below the American standard of living. It is 
claimed that one important factor in their success is 
their willingness to put up with conditions that the 
white man will not tolerate. 

Without doubt the Japanese have been less success- 
ful in adapting themselves to American standards of 
living than to American methods of work. Accus- 
tomed as they were in Japan to live on what we regard 
as a low economic scale, they have faced in America 
the temptation to increase their savings by retaining 
their old standards as far as possible. Cheap living 
and long hours they regard as a matter of course. Their 
simple diet suits their taste better than the more expen- 
sive American food. Long hours of labor in Japan are 
the ordinary thing. The farmers toil from sunrise to 
sunset while in the small shops and factories work fre- 
quently goes on from early in the morning until as late 
as ten or eleven o'clock at night. The laborers have 
never learned to protest against bad working condi- 
tions. That unscrupulous American employers should 
take advantage of these facts and employ Japanese on 
terms with which Americans could not compete is to 
be expected. It is still more unfortunate that even 
after most of the inequalities in wages have been abol- 



Reaction to Economic Conditions 127 

ished, many of the Japanese still tend to live on a lower 
economic scale than their wages would seem to justify. 
The rigid economy practiced by the ordinary Japanese 
laborer in America is thus described by Kawakami : 

Wherever he may be employed, he has reduced subsist- 
ence into a science. Not the cost of food alone enters 
into his scientific solution of the problem, but his entire 
existence is regulated on a basis of rigid economy, so 
that he reduces the expenditure for essential subsistence 
to approximately twenty per cent of his average wages. 
He practices economy on the basis of his earning power 
and does not permit his expenditure to increase in the 
same ratio as his earnings may increase. The Japanese 
earning from $1.25 to $1.50 a day will spend from twenty 
to thirty cents a day for subsistence, while the average 
maximum cost of subsistence for those earning from 
$1.75 to $2.50 is thirty-five cents. Though spending so 
small a portion of his earnings for subsistence, he is 
enabled to subsist comfortably by eliminating unnecessary 
waste.^ 

While this economy is commendable from the stand- 
point of thrift, it is at once apparent that it is a scale 
of living with which Americans cannot compete. To 
the Japanese peasant, however, this amount of expen- 
diture seems amply sufficient when compared with his 
former mode of life in Japan. The following quota- 
tion from a Japanese writer shows the wide gap be- 
tween the standards of living in America and in the 
Far East : 

1 American-Japanese Relations, pp. 349-50- 



128 The Japanese Invasion 

Though rice is considered the staff of life in Japan, it 
is not freely indulged in by the peasants who raise it. The 
poorer classes cannot afford to take unmixed rice ; there- 
fore they boil with it cheaper barley and millet. In some 
southern provinces sweet potatoes form the chief part of 

daily food A laboring man can get his food for 

about twenty sen a day, and he can feed his family (wife 
and a couple of children) on an additional thirty sen.^ 
In fact, if he makes eighty sen and his wife thirty sen, a 
sum total of a yen and ten sen a day, they can keep a 
little house with two rooms, paying a rent of three yen 
per month, read newspapers (for the humblest can read), 
take daily baths (a racial necessity), send their children 
to school (for education is compulsory), and put in the 
savings bank two or three yen 2l month. Does this sound 
delectably Arcadian? And yet of families like these the 
duties of modern citizenship are demanded, viz., the pay- 
ment of taxes, service in the army, and attendance at 
school on the part of the children.^ 

While the low social and economic status out of 
which many of the Japanese immigrants have come 
does influence their reaction to American environment, 
there is noticeable a growing tendency on the part of 
those who can afford it to live according to American 
standards. In so far as they have failed, it must be 
recognized that this has largely been because of eco- 
nomic reasons and not because of a dislike of American 
food and ways of living. Within recent years the Jap- 
anese have been insisting on high wages to such an 

1 A sen equals one-half cent and a yen one-half dollar, approxi- 
mately. 

2 The Japanese Nation, p. 2i6. 



Reaction to Economic Conditions 129 

extent that the charge of underbidding can no longer 
be made against them. They have even availed them- 
selves of the western method of strikes, and as they 
are highly organized they usually win the point for 
which they are contending. 

When due consideration is given to the enforced 
segregation of the majority of the Japanese in America, 
it can readily be seen that they have made considerable 
progress in their attempts to compete with American 
workmen. Probably no other people, handicapped as 
the Japanese have been by race prejudice, could have 
surpassed them in making so large a place for them- 
selves in American economic life. 



! 



CHAPTER VIII 

ORGANIZATION AND SOLIDARITY OF JAPANESE 
IMMIGRANTS 

/^NE of the striking characteristics of the Japanese 
^^ in America is the thoroughness of their organi- 
zation. Practically all the Japanese immigrants are 
bound together in groups of some kind, ranging in size 
and importance from laborers' gangs and local guilds 
to a national association. In their tendency to organize 
and in their ready response to group control, the Jap- 
anese have been equaled by few, if any, of the Euro- 
pean immigrant groups. Probably the only immigrants 
who have surpassed them in this respect are the Chi- 
nese, whose marked leaning toward exclusiveness has 
served to bind them very closely together. 

Among the various Japanese organizations, the one 
that is most helpful to the mass of the Japanese 
immigrants, who belong to the laboring class, is the 
"gang" system, or the organization of laborers into 
groups under a Japanese boss or contractor. When a 
Japanese laborer wishes to secure work, he does not 
usually apply to employers directly. If this were neces- 
sary, language difficulties together with his ignorance 
of local conditions and rates of wages would seriously 
handicap him and result in dissatisfaction for both 
parties concerned. The simplest method for him to 

130 



Organisation and Solidarity 131 

follow is to join a group of his countrymen under a 
Japanese boss who takes entire charge of all negotia- 
tions with the employers. These contractors usually 
have full supervision and control of their men, not only 
paying their wages and overseeing their work but con- 
ducting lodging houses where the men live on the 
cooperative plan. Some of these bosses have under 
them small groups consisting of about a dozen men, 
while others control hundreds of laborers. These or- 
ganized gangs of Japanese have proved very acceptable 
to employers because it offers them an adequate labor 
supply with the least amount of trouble on their part. 
In the report of the Immigration Commission this fact 
was forcibly brought out in these words : 

The convenience to ranchers of this organization of 
Asiatics has been one of the most important things in 
helping the Asiatics to displace white men where the latter 
were formerly employed, and to prevent the employment 
of white men where Asiatics were already established in 
the industry. This "gang" system has greatly appealed 
to employers in all agricultural communities requiring 
large numbers of hand workers, and in some industries 
where the work is especially disagreeable and especially 
large numbers are required, as in the beet fields and vine- 
yards, it has come to be looked upon as absolutely essen- 
tial to the continuation of the industry.^ 

The success of this " gang" system in promoting the 
interests of both employers and Japanese laborers has 
been largely brought about by the efficiency of the 

1 Report of Immigration Commission, 24: 18. 



132 The Japanese Invasion 

Japanese contractors. These men watch very carefully 
the state of the labor market and make a survey of the 
important places where there is likely to be a demand 
for Japanese labor. They keep themselves fully in- 
formed of the number of acres under cultivation and 
of the probable yield of the different crops. They also 
make it their business to keep in touch with the large 
ranch owners in order that they may take advantage 
of every opportunity to get control of the labor 
supply.^ 

. This organization of Japanese labor is even carried 
out to the extent of eliminating competition between 
the different groups of Japanese laborers. Each gang 
has its territory assigned to it and is not allowed to 
invade a district belonging to another group. Efforts 
have been made by different bosses to get together at 
the opening of the season and agree upon a scale of 
prices so as to avoid underbidding. This thoroughness 
of their organization has frequently enabled the Jap- 
anese to drive out of a community competing laborers 
of other nationalities. The usual method followed was 
to secure contracts by underbidding the laborers already 
in the field and then later to raise the price to its 
normal level. Within recent years the Japanese con- 
tractors have found it increasingly difficult to secure 
enough laborers to maintain effective organizations. 
The exclusion agreement has cut short the supply of 
new laborers while thousands of the old immigrants 
have either gone into business for themselves or have 

1 Atnerican-Japanese Relations, p. 350. 



Organization and Solidarity 133 

secured steady employment on Japanese farms. But 
in spite of these handicaps, organized Japanese labor 
is still an important factor in many of the agricultural 
communities in California.^ 

Another phase of the organization of Japanese la- 
borers is seen in their arrangements for cooperative 
housekeeping. As board is seldom given them by their 
white employers on the large ranches, they are com- 
pelled to provide for their own subsistence. In case the 
Japanese contractor does not furnish their board at a 
fixed rate, they buy their own supplies, appoint mem- 
bers of the group to do different tasks, and all share 
equally in the actual cost. A recent writer gives the 
following description of this kind of housekeeping as 
carried on by Japanese laborers : 

One of the best samples of housekeeping I have ever 
seen was done by the 140 Japanese who lived in the House 
of the Good Shepherd in South Omaha. A board of 
managers had charge of the affairs of the group. The 
secretary of the group kept all accounts and transacted 
all business with outsiders ; the commissary had charge of 
the feeding of the group ; the cooking, washing, and scrub- 
bing were systematized ; and each member was bound by 
a set of rules that secured peace and order. The men 
were constantly changing, some going and others coming ; 
but the total number of the colony remained about the 
same. Whatever differences and difficulties arose, they 
were settled within the group. If any member got into 
trouble, the colony was back of him to the fullest extent. 
It was the most perfect organization on the communal 
basis I have seen, and, as far as I know, nothing like it is 

1 Report of Immigration Commission, 24 : 591-94- 



134 The Japanese Invasion 

found in America among the peoples of southeastern 
Europe.^ 

This efficiency in organization is found not only 
among the Japanese farm laborers but also among those 
engaged in farming on their own account. In commu- 
nities where there is a sufficient number of Japanese 
farmers, there have been organized Japanese produ- 
cers' associations which include in their membership the 
majority of the farmers of that race. These organiza- 
tions are designed to protect the Japanese against un- 
just discrimination in the disposal of their crops and 
to advance the interests of the Japanese community in 
every possible way. They give out information about 
American methods of agriculture especially as they 
apply to local conditions ; select tenants for farms that 
can be leased; advise prospective tenants in regard to 
available land and in some instances have taken steps 
to control the acreage and marketing of the crops. ^ 
Besides these direct economic aims, others of a more 
general nature are included in their statements of the 
purpose of the association. Thus in one case the object 
of the organization is said to be — 

.... to advance the interests, uphold the dignity, and 
protect the happiness of the members and of the Japanese 

in general To assist in improving and ameliorating 

their moral, social, and economic conditions To 

maintain and insure cordiality between landlord and 
tenant, thus guaranteeing against all unnecessary mis- 

1 Roberts, P., The New Immigration, p. 124 

2 Report of Immigration Commission, 24 : 396-97. 



Organisation and Solidarity 135 

understanding between them In case of dispute 

between landlord and tenant, to act as arbitrators and 
mediators with a view to seeing justice done to both par- 
ties To take a united and decisive stand against all 

unscrupulous parties and irresponsible tenants To 

make a concerted effort to procure for this section the best 
quality of Japanese labor available, in order more effectu- 
ally to develop the fertile bottoms now so scantily popu- 
lated.i 

The Japanese who reside in the large western cities 
are also highly organized. Very few of their business 
men hold membership in the American business men's 
organizations. Usually they form their own associa- 
tions which are designed to promote the business enter- 
prises in which they are engaged. Their most effective 
city organizations are those which are limited to one 
special business, trade, or industry, such as the Board- 
ing and Lodging House Keepers' Association, Barbers' 
Union, Tailors' and Dressmakers' Union, Suit Clean- 
ing Union, Restaurant Keepers' Association, Express- 
men's Union, etc. As an illustration of the activities 
of these organizations the work of the Japanese Bar- 
bers' Union of San Francisco may be cited. The 
members of this organization pay fifty cents per month 
as dues. Regulations are made fixing the time for 
opening and closing the shops and the scale of prices. 
Sunday closing is enforced to conform to the city ordi- 
nance. The matter of apprenticeship is kept under 
careful control. The organization also serves as a 

^ The American Japanese Problem, p. 97. 



136 The Japanese Invasion 

mutual benefit society. In case a member, because of ill 
health, is compelled to return to Japan, the money is 
provided to pay his fare. If any member is disabled 
by sickness longer than a month, an assessment is made 
to provide for his support. Upon the death of a mem- 
ber his family is given a sum of money equivalent to 
the fare from San Francisco to Yokohama.^ 

Strong pressure is brought to bear upon the Japanese 
to get them to join their trade guild or business asso- 
ciation. Usually they find it to their advantage to do 
so because of assistance given in time of sickness or of 
financial embarrassment. The success which the Jap- 
anese have attained in city employments and in busi- 
ness has been greatly promoted by the thoroughness 
of their organizations, which have minimized competi- 
tion among themselves and have enabled them to 
present a united front to the forces that have been 
hindering their advancement. 

Another form of organization popular among the 
Japanese is the prefectural club which limits its mem- 
bership to those who have come from the particular 
province in Japan that the club represents. Variations 
in dialect and in social characteristics, which are espe- 
cially noticeable among the lower classes in the differ- 
ent provinces, together with the fellow feeling which 
naturally arises because of a common birthplace have 
tended to draw many Japanese together in these pre- 
fectural societies. In 1909, twenty-seven different 
prefectures were represented by these organizations in 

^ Report of Immigration Commission, 24 : 25-29. 



Organisation and Solidarity 137 

San Francisco. In general they serve as centers of 
social life and give assistance to those of their number 
who may be in need. 

Probably the most important and influential of the 
Japanese organizations in America are the Japanese 
associations which have been established in more than 
fifty cities and communities. In each center of Jap- 
anese population there exists one of these associations 
which serves as a headquarters for the Japanese com- 
munity as well as a clearing-house for all things of 
interest to them. Each association is controlled by a 
board of directors and employs at least one salaried 
secretary. All of these associations are federated in a 
central organization called the Japanese Association of 
America, which has its offices in San Francisco. The 
purpose of these associations as set forth in their con- 
stitutions is rather general and vague. The Japanese 
association in San Francisco states its aim as follows : 
"to elevate the character of Japanese immigrants; to 
promote association between Japanese and Americans ; 
to promote commerce, agriculture, and other in- 
dustries; and to further Japanese interests." In a 
number of cases the incentive to form these organiza- 
tions was the prejudice against the Japanese, which 
made them feel that they must stand together in order 
to protect their rights. 

Their work, however, has by no means been re- 
stricted to protests against unjust treatment. These 
associations, which include in their membership the best 
and most progressive leaders of the Japanese, have 



138 The Japanese Invasion 

made special efforts to elevate the moral standards of 
the Japanese immigrants and to eliminate some of the 
objectionable features of Japanese life. In Fresno, 
California, the Japanese association in 1908 took the 
initiative in a vigorous campaign against the Chinese 
gambling dens and the Japanese houses of prostitution 
which were doing a flourishing business in that city. 
The city authorities, who had been acting on the as- 
sumption that the wrongdoing of the Asiatics was of 
no special consequence so long as it was confined to 
their own communities, were aroused to action by the 
demands of the Japanese and made strong efforts to 
abate the evil. The Japanese associations have always 
been willing to cooperate with the American authorities 
in securing the observance of law among the Japanese 
immigrants. In some cases they have even deported 
Japanese whose evil conduct was bringing the Japanese 
community into disrepute. Their secretaries keep care- 
ful statistical records of all Japanese living in their 
jurisdiction and frequently cooperate with their consul 
by supplying him with information about their coun- 
trymen. 

An interesting phase of the work undertaken by 
these associations is the part they take in the so-called 
"picture-bride" movement. A Japanese in America 
who wishes to secure a wife from Japan without the 
expense of crossing the ocean for her, is required to 
make application to the association of which he is a 
member. The secretary of the association then care- 
fully investigates the financial standing and moral char- 



Organisation and Solidarity 139 

acter of the prospective bridegroom and makes a full 
report to the Japanese consulate. If the report is sat- 
isfactory, the consul informs the Tokyo authorities, 
who then issue a passport to the girl who has consented 
to come to America as a bride. Because of the careful 
cooperation of these secretaries who are in a position 
to know the Japanese in their jurisdiction, the attempts 
of a few Japanese to use the " picture-bride " movement 
as a means of importing women for immoral purposes 
have been very largely foiled. The amount of work 
and responsibility involved in these investigations of 
Japanese bridegrooms can be seen by the fact that 
in 1914 more than twenty-five hundred "picture- 
brides " arrived in the United States and Hawaii.^ It 
is claimed that the secretaries exercise great care in 
deciding about the fitness and ability of a man to sup- 
port a family, and that they rigidly reject all unworthy 
applicants. Since this method of arranging for a mar- 
riage is not so different from the ordinary Japanese 
procedure, it seems more satisfactory to them than it 
would to an American and results generally in a 

^ According to the Annual Report of the Commissioner General 
of Immigration for 1914, the number of " picture-brides " who 
arrived at the port of Honolulu during the year ending June 30, 
1914, was 1,407; at Seattle, 511; the exact number who arrived at 
San Francisco is not stated. However, the total number of fe- 
males who arrived at this port was 1,845, of whom the report says 
that the " picture-brides are the predominating factor." 

The Commissioner General's report for 1915 does not state the 
exact number of picture-brides for that year. It is estimated that 
ninety per cent, or more than 3,000, of the Japanese females en- 
tering continental United States in 191 5 came in the capacity of 
picture-brides. 



140 The Japanese Invasion 

permanent union. ^ These marriages are undoubtedly 
doing much to give a permanent and settled character 
to the Japanese communities and are occurring in suf- 
ficient numbers to produce a substantial increase in our 
Japanese population. 

The Japanese who have settled in the large cities in 
the eastern part of the United States, where race preju- 
dice against Orientals is less in evidence than in the 
West, have also found it to their advantage to organize 
themselves as thoroughly as possible. The Japanese 
editor of the New York Japan Review describes as fol- 
lows their association which has been established in 
New York City : 

A new society, the Nippon Jin Kai, " Association of the 
Japanese," has recently been organized with headquarters 
in New York to foster friendliness and cooperation 
among the resident Japanese as well as to strengthen the 
friendly ties which bind the people of Japan and of the 
United States. The Nippon Jin Kai will take cognizance 

1 Dr. Gulick states that only about one per cent of these mar- 
riages end in divorce. {The American Japanese Problem, p. 95.) 
The Commissioner of Immigration presents a different opinion in 
a recent report : " Many of the ' proxy ' brides conclude shortly 
after arrival that they have made a bad bargain and desert their 
husbands, and sooner or later enter upon an immoral life. Realiz- 
ing this, the consul for this district is endeavoring to discourage 

the bringing of * proxy ' brides to the United States In view 

of this I would recommend that competent officers who under- 
stand the Japanese language make investigations occasionally in 
order to ascertain whether or not these ' proxy ' wives are living 
with their husbands. They might also investigate as to the occu- 
pations of recent female arrivals. I believe the results would be 
somewhat surprising." Report of the Commissioner General of 
Immigration for 1914, p. 305. 



Organisation and Solidarity 141 

only of such matters as affect the general interests of 
Japanese, and will have no connection with official acts or 
opinions of the Japanese government. With this new 
society has been embodied the Kio Sai Kai, " Mutual Aid 
Society," organized here a half-dozen years ago; and the 
new inclusive organization, among its other beneficent 
activities, will aim to help, out of its membership 

funds, any Japanese who are ill or in other need 

As Japanese and American interests become more and 
more interwoven, there will naturally arise manifold prob- 
lems directly or indirectly affecting both peoples. In 
facing these problems, the Japanese who have organized 
this Association feel that it is incumbent upon them to 
take concerted instead of individual action. They also 
feel the importance of bettering their status — moral, 
mental, physical — by helpful counsel. With such con- 
victions in mind the members of the society will strive for 
the promotion of welfare, the safeguarding of rights, and 
the better understanding of international questions.^ 

The two leading Japanese organizations in Chicago 
are the Mutual Aid Society, and the Young Men's 
Christian Institute. Mr. Shimazu, who is the efficient 
secretary of the latter, is doing an important work for 
the Japanese in that city. The institute, which serves 
as the headquarters for the Japanese residing in and 
passing through Chicago, attempts various kinds of 
work. Lodging and board are provided as far as facil- 
ities permit; employment is secured for those out of 
work; a reading room is maintained which is supplied 
with both Japanese and English books and periodicals ; 
a tennis court, billiard room, and other facilities for 

1 Editorial, New York Japan Review, May, 1914, p. 194. 



142 The Japanese Invasion 

recreation are provided; religious services are held 
every Sunday in the Japanese language; assistance is 
given to strangers passing through the city; and the 
secretary by frequent visitation keeps in touch with the 
three hundred or more Japanese living in Chicago and 
vicinity. 

Religious organizations not only of this type but 
of various kinds play an important part in promoting 
the solidarity of the Japanese immigrants. In their 
religious activities the Japanese are seldom associated 
with American Christians. In order to provide for 
their religious needs, special Christian missions are 
established with Japanese pastors in charge. Language 
difficulties and the prejudice against the Japanese 
make necessary the segregation, as far as religious 
worship is concerned, of that element of our Japa- 
nese population which is most in sympathy with Amer- 
ican ideals. In regard to this religious work which 
is being carried on by American churches, the 
report of the Immigration Commission makes this 
pointed observation : " These missions are for the Jap- 
anese alone, a recognition of a difference between them 
and other races and a condition which lessens their 
value as an assimilative force." ^ The number of Jap- 
anese Christian missions now maintained in California 
is forty-eight, with a total membership of about twenty- 
five hundred, or four per cent of the Japanese popula- 
tion in the state. 

The great majority of the Japanese in America who 

1 Report of Immigration Commission, 23 : 163. 



Organization and Solidarity 143 

manifest any religious interest are more or less closely 
identified with the Buddhist religion. The Buddhists 
in Japan and more especially those of the Shin sect 
have been very active in sending priests to America to 
carry on their propaganda among their own people. 
In California there are nineteen temples and twenty- 
one priests with a steadily increasing constituency. 
Buddhist missions are also located in Seattle, Portland, 
Salt Lake City, and Ogden, and very successful work 
is being carried on in Hawaii. To a considerable 
extent the Buddhist priests have adapted their methods 
of work to American conditions. Their buildings are 
usually a radical departure from the traditional type of 
Buddhist temple, and their religious activities are by 
no means limited to the reading of Sutras and their 
customary acts of worship. An American Buddhist 
plant with its gymnasium, library, auditorium, and 
various rooms for educational and social purposes 
bears little resemblance to the picturesque temples in 
Japan, so far removed from the active life of the 
people. 

The Buddhist priests have not only succeeded in 
adapting themselves to the new situation, but have still 
further tried to promote their cause by an appeal to 
patriotism. Buddhism and patriotic devotion are joined 
together in such a way as to make it appear that the 
rejection of their old religion would mean disloyalty 
to their country.^ Such an appeal exerts considerable 
influence among the more ignorant and lower classes 

1 Asia at the Door, p. 233. 



144 The Japanese Invasion 

of immigrants who form the largest part of the 
Buddhist constituency. In these and in various other 
ways the Japanese are making a determined effort to 
perpetuate their native religion on American soil, a 
fact of considerable importance in promoting the soli- 
darity of the Japanese immigrants. 

Another important phase of the organized activities 
of the Japanese immigrants is seen in their efforts to 
give their children a Japanese education. In British 
Columbia, where there is no compulsory public school 
law, the Japanese maintain their own schools patterned 
after the schools of Japan, with the instruction in the 
Japanese language. The public schools of British Co- 
lumbia are open to the Japanese, but the majority of the 
Japanese parents prefer to give their children a Jap- 
anese education. In the United States, where there is a 
compulsory public school law, the Japanese very will- 
ingly send their children to the public schools. In order, 
however, to provide for the Japanese side of their edu- 
cation, they have established supplementary schools 
which usually hold their sessions for two or three hours 
in the afternoon after the regular schools are closed, 
and give instruction in Japanese language and compo- 
sition as well as in Japanese history, geography, and 
ethics. Mr. Kawakami justifies the existence of these 
supplementary schools on the ground that they are 
performing a real service by giving instruction in sub- 
jects which are neglected in the American curriculum. 
In his opinion these Japanese schools are not open to 
the criticism that they interfere with the assimilation 



Organisation and Solidarity 145 

of the Japanese children.^ Others hold that they do 
teach a narrow patriotism and cause the Japanese to 
be regarded with more disfavor by their American 
neighbors. In the spring of 191 3 a prominent Japanese 
resident of Seattle paid a short visit to Japan, and while 
there met an old American friend with whom he dis- 
cussed topics of mutual interest. In the course of their 
conversation, the Japanese- American problem naturally 
came up for consideration, and upon this subject the 
Japanese expressed himself as follows : 

The Japanese must bear their share of the blame for the 
race prejudice against them, which is so often aroused 
by their attitude toward American institutions. For in- 
stance, I have often been chided by my Japanese friends 
in Seattle for not sending my children to the Japanese 
school, where they would be taught the Japanese lan- 
guage and loyalty to the Emperor and reverence for Japa- 
nese traditions. I always reply to them that I am an 
American and that I want my children to grow up as 
American children. Furthermore, the teachers in the 
Japanese schools are likely to be Buddhist priests or 
acolytes, who know just enough English to enable them to 
swear. They smoke cigarettes in the schoolroom and set 
a bad moral example to the children. Through their 
desire to prevent the children from becoming Christians, 
they try to prejudice them against all American customs 
and institutions, and do their best to make the children 
loyal to Japan instead of to America. This is one of the 
reasons for the prejudice against the Japanese. As soon 
as the Americans found out that the Japanese immigrants 
had such an attitude toward American ideals, the feeling 
against them arose. 

1 Asia at the Door, pp. 81, 243-44. 



146 The Japanese Invasion 

Entirely apart from the criticisms that may be passed 
upon these schools because of incompetent teachers and 
because of their attempt to perpetuate in America their 
native language and traditions, the maintenance of 
these schools tends to draw the Japanese more closely 
together and reveals something of the strength of their 
national feeling. 

In this connection there ought also to be mentioned 
the great influence of the Japanese vernacular press in 
promoting the growth of a common public opinion 
among the Japanese immigrants. Says Dr. Gulick : 

It is doubtful if the immigrants from any other land 
are as alert as those from Japan in the use of the press 
for the promotion of their interests. Is there any other 
national group in America which, in proportion to its 
numbers, supports so many publications?^ 

The Japanese people are great newspaper readers. 
The periodical press in Japan circulates widely even 
among the lower classes, the majority of whom possess 
enough education to read the newspapers. This same 
desire to read is characteristic of the Japanese in Amer- 
ica. In spite of their limited numbers they support 
twelve daily, six weekly, and thirteen monthly news- 
papers and periodicals, all published in the Japanese 
language. Besides these larger publications, many of 
the small groups and organizations issue a kind of bul- 
letin or news letter at frequent intervals in order that 
their members may keep in touch with one another. 

1 The American Japanese Problem, p. lOO. 



Organisation and Solidarity 147 

Through these various channels of communication 
news is presented from the Japanese viewpoint and a 
public opinion is formed which makes united action 
possible. 

That a people so sensitive to their environment and 
so open-minded in their attitude toward western civ- 
ilization should maintain such strong racial organi- 
zations must largely be explained by the prejudice 
existing against them. The hostile attitude of the 
American people has compelled them to organize in 
defense of their own interests. It is only by standing 
together that they can establish themselves in an unwel- 
come environment. They have felt that united action is 
necessary in order that employment may be secured, 
and their need of recreation and social intercourse has 
driven them still more closely together. They have 
faced in an intensified form the same problem that has 
confronted immigrants of all nationalities, and their 
response to the situation has differed from that of the 
others only in degree. The reaction of nearly all immi- 
grant groups to their new environment has been 
organization to protect their interests. In so far as the 
Japanese have followed this natural tendency, they 
merit no special attention. 

What is striking about the Japanese is their success 
in maintaining organizations that exert such strong 
control over all their members. The explanation of 
this fact must be sought in the social structure of the 
Japanese nation. In the Far East individuals have 
always been kept in the background. Such an idea as 



148 The Japanese Invasion 

personal liberty has never gained wide popularity in 
Japan. The individual has been taught to subordinate 
his interests to those of the family, the community, and 
the State. The principle that private interests must 
conform to the general good has permeated all the 
philosophy of the Orient. Consequently, subjection 
and obedience to authority are a characteristic of the 
Japanese people. They have learned how to increase 
their strength by standing together. That a people 
who have learned so thoroughly the lesson of social 
solidarity should present a united front in their con- 
tact with American environment is to be expected. 
Schooled as they have been in the idea of the suprem- 
acy of the group, the individualistic American spirit 
has affected them more slowly than it has the immi- 
grants from Europe. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE PROBLEM OF INTERMARRIAGE 

EVER since the beginning of the white invasion of 
the Far East in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 
turies, there has been going on to a greater or less 
extent an intermixture between the white races of the 
West and the colored races of eastern Asia. Foreign 
sailors while in eastern ports have formed alliances 
with native women which have sometimes resulted in 
illegitimate offspring as inferior in character and social 
position as their parents who gave them birth. As soon 
as Westerners began to take up settled residence in the 
East for the purpose of engaging in business or in 
administrative work, more permanent unions with na- 
tive women were entered upon, some being registered 
as legal marriages, while others, and these were by far 
the most numerous, were merely a state of concubinage 
winked at by the law and regarded as a necessary evil 
by the foreign communities. This aspect of the mix- 
ture of the white and colored races can best be seen in 
India, where the process has been going on for more 
than two hundred years and has brought about the for- 
mation of groups of Eurasians and Anglo-Indians suf- 
ficiently large to constitute one of the problems of that 
country. 

In Japan, where free association with foreigners has 
149 



I50 The Japanese Invasion 

existed for only a comparatively short period, the 
Eurasian problem has not had time to assume much 
significance as far as numbers are concerned. There 
has been, however, an unusual amount of illicit rela- 
tionship between foreign men and Japanese women of 
the lower classes. The attractiveness of the Japanese 
women together with their reputed willingness to hire 
themselves out to foreigners for a small sum has made 
the ports of Japan popular with sailors, traders, and 
visitors with a tendency to loose living. The few chil- 
dren that have resulted from these liaisons have gener- 
ally, as might be expected, turned out badly and have 
served to strengthen the popular impression that Eura- 
sian children are necessarily of an inferior type. This 
idea was given scientific expression by no less an 
authority than Herbert Spencer who, in a personal let- 
ter to Baron Kaneko, strongly condemned the practice 
of mixed marriages. 

To your remaining question respecting the intermar- 
riage of foreigners and Japanese, my reply is that, as 
rationally answered, there is no difficulty at all. It should 
be positively forbidden. It is not at root a question of 
social philosophy. It is at root a question of biology. 
There is abundant proof, alike furnished by the inter- 
marriages of human races and by the interbreeding of 
animals, that when the varieties mingled diverge beyond 
a certain slight degree the result is inevitably a bad one 
in the long run. I have myself been in the habit of look- 
ing at the evidence bearing on this matter for many years 
past, and my conviction is based on numerous facts de- 
rived from numerous sources By all means, there- 



Problem of Intermarriage 151 

fore, peremptorily interdict marriages of Japanese with 
foreigners.^ 

While Spencer did not quote the sources from which 
he drew his conclusions, he must have had in mind the 
progeny of promiscuous unions found in the ports of 
the Far East where the type of parents and the social 
heritage of the children were usually of the worst. 
His attempt to support his conclusions by drawing an 
analogy between the intermarriage of different races 
of men and the interbreeding of different species of 
animals is by no means convincing to modern students. 
In spite of all differences in external appearance and 
habits of life, it is now quite generally held that the 
human race is biologically one. The modern races 
which are continually being brought into closer con- 
tacts with each other because of better facilities of 
communication and travel are themselves by no means 
pure, but are the result of a vast intermixture of dif- 
ferent peoples going back into the remote past. In so 
far as the offspring of mixed marriages in Japan fail 
to measure up to the usual standard, the more probable 
explanation of this fact must be found in their bad 
social heredity and in the handicap such children must 
face because of the strong prejudice against them. 

The correctness of this view is borne out by a study 
of the mixed marriages in Japan that have taken place 
in the higher social circles. Well-educated and success- 
ful Westerners like Professors Seymour and Eastlake 

1 From a letter to Baron Kentaro Kaneko written Aug. 26, 1892, 
and first made public by the London Times of Jan. 22, 1904. 



152 The Japanese Invasion 

of the Japanese government schools ; Captain Brinkley, 
editor of the Japan Mail; Lafcadio Hearn, author 
of a number of books on Japan; Mr. De Becker, 
a Yokohama attorney, and others almost as well 
known, married Japanese wives of good social posi- 
tion and established themselves as permanent resi- 
dents of Japan. Their children, with few exceptions, 
have turned out well and do not seem to be in health, 
ability, or moral character in any wise inferior to Jap- 
anese or European children of corresponding social 
rank. The great problem has been to give them a suit- 
able education. The foreign fathers have been unwill- 
ing in most cases, to have the children enter Japanese 
schools and grow up as Japanese citizens. As far as 
possible they have tried to give them a foreign educa- 
tion by employing tutors or by sending them abroad. 
In either case they are unfitted for residence in Japan 
in the status of Japanese, which would seem to be the 
natural course for them to follow. Whether they have 
remained in Japan or have tried to gain their living 
abroad, they have had to face a prejudice, wherever 
their family history was known, that largely accounts 
for any failures that may be charged up against them. 
It is, indeed, this prejudice against intermarriage 
which lowers the social status of not only the children 
but the parents as well, that is one of the chief argu- 
ments against the formation of such unions. The Jap- 
anese woman who marries a foreigner must brave the 
criticism and displeasure of nearly all her relatives and 
friends and suffers more or less social ostracism. She 



Problem of Intermarriage 153 

finds herself cut off from many of her former asso- 
ciations with her own people and is given no social 
standing in the foreign community of which her hus- 
band is a member. It is hard to overestimate the feel- 
ing against mixed marriages in the Far East. Both the 
Japanese and the foreigners regard those who have 
entered upon such an alliance as having lowered their 
social position, and in countless ways they make plainly 
evident their disapproval. This taboo is undoubtedly 
responsible for the small number of mixed marriages 
found among the higher classes. Even though the 
foreign men are willing to face this social disapproval 
for the sake of a home, few Japanese girls of good 
family have sufficient courage and independence to 
marry contrary to the wishes of their parents, who 
almost invariably disapprove of foreign marriages 
for their children. 

Practically no Japanese girls educated abroad have 
married foreigners during their long residence in a for- 
eign land. While the characteristic subjection of Jap- 
anese women to parental authority might be sufficient 
to explain this, there is no available evidence that these 
girls have received desirable offers of marriage from 
foreign friends. In the first stages of race amalgama- 
tion the initiative comes from the men who happen to 
be isolated, from women of their own race. Under 
normal conditions of association foreign wives are sel- 
dom chosen in preference to those of native birth. 

Within recent years the most common type of inter- 
marriage with the Japanese is that formed between 



154 The Japanese Invasion 

Japanese men and foreign women. This has come 
about because of the large number of Japanese men 
who have gone abroad, especially to America, for a 
more or less protracted stay. Unlike the Japanese 
women, they have felt themselves less under the influ- 
ence of parental restraint and have in a number of 
instances contracted a foreign marriage. In case such 
families go to Japan to live, this type of intermarriage 
is very likely to result unhappily because the wife finds 
herself suddenly transplanted into a new social envi- 
ronment for which she is by no means fitted. Without 
a knowledge of the language and unfamiliar with the 
social customs of the new country, she must adapt her- 
self to a family system in which the wife plays a much 
more subordinate part than is customary in the West. 
Not only is she received coldly by her husband's par- 
ents but she is also largely cut off from association with 
people of her own nationality, who assign her a lower 
social position because of her marriage with a Japanese. 
Especially is her lot unfortunate if her husband's in- 
come is not sufficient to enable them to live in foreign 
style. It is a rare foreign woman who can successfully 
adapt herself to a Japanese house and Japanese food 
and at the same time endure the isolation that is in- 
evitable because of the existing prejudice against inter- 
marriage. She also must bear in mind that in becoming 
the wife of a Japanese she has placed herself on an 
equality with Japanese women and must expect to re- 
ceive the treatment accorded them. However consid- 
erate her husband may be, the weight of social custom 



Problem of Intermarriage 155 

will naturally cause his attitude toward his wife to con- 
form to the ideals of his own people. The Japanese 
family system demands as one of its first principles 
the recognition of the inferiority of woman and the 
subjection of her will to man. While this may be much 
modified by her husband's kindness and foreign train- 
ing, yet her identification with the Jaj^anese people 
makes her a part of this system, to which she must 
either conform or remain an outsider isolated from the 
people with whom she has cast her lot. Lawton in his 
Empires of the Far East expresses the following opin- 
ion about this type of intermarriage : 

While the advocates of assimilation claim that the 
advancement of Japan as a nation entitles her people to 
be regarded as the equal of any other race, few if any 
of them are prepared for the marriage of western women 
with Japanese men. In making this reservation they 
completely spoil their whole case. It is in the nature of 
a recognition that the social standard in Japan is inferior 
to that which prevails in western countries. For it is 
indisputable that the marriage of a western woman to a 
Japanese lowers her status in society and exposes her to 
the indignities that are inseparable from the operation of 

the Japanese social system To anyone who chooses 

to inquire, facts are available proving beyond the merest 
shadow of a doubt that mixed marriages, in which the 
woman is of the white race and the man an Oriental, 
are attended by unutterable misery — misery that is inva- 
riably confined to the unfortunate lot of the wife. It 
may be urged that this state could only result where the 
Japanese belonged to the lower orders. Instances that 
have come within the knowledge of the writer conclu- 



156 The Japanese Invasion 

sively show this not to be the case. Japanese men of all 
classes are more or less imbued with a common idea in 
regard to womanhood, and it is the better classes who are 
generally seen abroad. Obviously names cannot be men- 
tioned, but I have in mind more than one instance where 
members of the nobility and government officials, whose 
status in their own country gave them an open door to 
European society, have treated foreign wives with a de- 
gree of indignity, and often with a callous disregard for 
even the most elementary of human principles, that should 
place them outside the pale of civilization.^ 

The foreign wife, however, is not the only one to 
suffer through these mixed unions. The Japanese hus- 
band residing abroad faces a delicate situation when he 
is recalled by his government to his native land, or 
when business interests demand his return. He is well 
aware that his foreign wife will not be made welcome 
by his own people, and knows that her presence may 
even hinder his social and official advancement. These 
considerations have sometimes resulted in the abandon- 
ment of the foreign family and in the securing of a 
divorce immediately upon the return to Japan. An 
example of this kind occurred in England a few years 
ago. A Japanese count, while residing abroad, mar- 
ried an English lady of good social position. Upon 
his return to Japan he left his wife behind with the 
understanding that she would follow him later. His 
family, not knowing of his foreign marriage, immedi- 
ately took steps to bring about his betrothal to an im- 
perial princess. The count, who was very desirous of 

^ The Empires of the Far East, 2: 761-63. 



Problem of Intermarriage 157 

forming such an alliance, determined to secure quietly 
a divorce from his English wife. In order to bring 
this about he first registered his marriage in a local 
police station so as to make it legal, and then shortly 
after dissolved the marriage by canceling the registra- 
tion, a procedure that is permitted in Japan in case the 
wife does not offer any objections. He then removed 
to another section of the city where he would be under 
the jurisdiction of a different police district and con- 
tinued the preparations for his wedding. Unfortu- 
nately for his plans, the newspapers got hold of the 
matter and gave it wide publicity. His engagement 
with the princess was broken off and he was deprived 
of his patent of nobility. From the Japanese view- 
point his greatest offense was not his abandonment of 
his lawful wife but rather the fact that his mixed mar- 
riage injured the prestige of the Japanese nobility. 

On the other hand, it sometimes happens, especially 
in the diplomatic circles, that the desire to live in for- 
eign style may cause a foreign wife to be regarded as 
a decided advantage. Japanese government officials 
who reside a great deal of the time abroad find it much 
easier to carry on their social duties when aided by a 
foreign wife. Viscount Aoki married a German lady, 
and their daughter is now the wife of a German baron. 
Mr. Ozaki, formerly mayor of Tokyo, and Minister of 
Justice in Marquis Okuma's cabinet, married a very 
accomplished Eurasian. Marriages of this kind, where 
the husband has sufficient income to live in foreign 
style and where his official position gives him prestige 



158 The Japanese Invasion 

in social circles, do not seem open to such serious objec- 
tions provided the welfare of the children can be se- 
cured. An American, who for a number of years has 
been in close touch with Japanese higher social circles, 
writes in a private letter as follows concerning this 
aspect of intermarriage: 

I feel that the Japanese are sufficiently prejudiced 
against foreigners, as such, to believe that while socially 
a foreign wife is no advantage to one of their subjects, 
such a possession might be sometimes an advantage in get- 
ting on with foreigners abroad and therefore is under 
such circumstances pardonable from the utilitarian point 
of view. In discussing the subject with Baron Kanda 
once, he admitted to me that the main objection of the 
Japanese to marriage with foreigners is the disadvantage 
it brings upon the offspring, as Eurasians are despised 
alike by Japanese and Occidentals. But so long as Japa- 
nese of high class show no disposition to want wives of 
equal class abroad, prejudice of a powerful kind must 
exist, but whether it is more on the foreign than the 
Japanese side may be a question, though I fancy it is 
stronger on the Japanese side. The recent coronation 
ceremonies, wherein the Imperial family spent nearly a 
month going about worshiping their ancestors, shows that 
the Japanese believe it possible to have a god of their 
own, or, if not that, that God Almighty is a Japanese, 
whom others ignorantly worship under another name. All 
this, to me, proves the existence of a racial and national 
self-conceit that could not believe a foreign woman fit to 
be the wife of a Japanese, except in an inferior way. As 
Viscount Aoki was believed to have also had a Japanese 
wife, he was, it is said, excused for taking a foreign 
mistress while abroad; and many Japanese never look 
upon the foreign wife as any more than a mistress of con- 



Problem of Intermarriage 159 

venience. I have heard Dr. Nitobe criticized by Japanese 
as " more than half foreigner," but whether it was because 
of his foreign marriage was not stated, though I suspect 
that was the reason. On the whole, then, you will see that 
my conviction, backed up by numerous inferences, is that 
the Japanese regard it as derogatory to marry foreigners ; 
and, other things being equal, it would work out disad- 
vantageously to a Japanese in official circles ; while, as we 
know, no high-class Japanese woman has ever married a 
foreigner. 

The sad side of this problem appears where a Jap- 
anese of the middle class marries a foreign wife and 
then takes her back with him to Japan. This has been 
done in a number of cases by Japanese men in profes- 
sional life whose income is not sufficient to enable them 
to maintain a foreign standard of living. A Japanese 
dentist, a graduate of an American dental college, mar- 
ried an American wife and returned with her to Japan 
to practice his profession. He was a well-trained and 
capable man and had no difficulty in securing work, but 
when his prices were lowered to the Japanese scale he 
was unable to maintain a foreign establishment for his 
family. His wife, who could not adjust herself to the 
Japanese mode of living, found herself an unwelcome 
member of the foreign community and has been liv- 
ing, to all outward appearance, a very unhappy life. 
She stated to some of her friends that she went to 
Japan believing that it was a land of sunshine and 
flowers where life would be ideal, but that her disillu- 
sionment had been complete. 

Mr. Y, resided for a number of years in America as 



i6o The Japanese Invasion 

an art student. In 1 910 he married in New York City 
a German-American girl who accompanied him back 
to Japan. He set up a studio in Tokyo where he made 
an unsuccessful effort to earn a living as a portrait 
painter. He then went to Omori, an inland town north 
of Tokyo, and established himself as a photographer, 
using the last of his wife's money to buy the necessary 
equipment. This business brought in too small an 
income for him to provide foreign food for his wife, 
who was unable to accustom herself to Japanese diet. 
Finally he became so involved in debt that he had to 
give up his business and was left penniless with a for- 
eign wife and two small children dependent upon him. 
Their plight was discovered by an American mission- 
ary who took the family to Yokohama and made an 
effort to find employment for him. Since no work 
could be found which would enable him to support his 
family in reasonable comfort, it was decided to send 
them back to America. A purse of several hundred 
dollars was raised among the foreign community, their 
debts were settled, and their fare paid back to New 
York. The wife found, to her chagrin, that by her 
marriage to a Japanese she had forfeited her American 
citizenship and consequently had to suffer all the 
trouble and indignities an Oriental must face in secur- 
ing entrance to America. 

Dr. K., a graduate of the medical department of 
the University of Michigan, married a well-educated 
American girl of good family. The bride at the time 
of her marriage had several thousand dollars, all of 



Problem of Intermarriage i6i 

which was used to pay the expenses of a prolonged 
stay on the Pacific coast. After their arrival in Japan, 
Dr. K. established a hospital in Tokyo and became a 
successful physician. His attitude, however, toward 
his wife changed and he treated her with such harsh- 
ness that her life became unhappy. Her distress was 
further increased by the fact that her husband brought 
Japanese girls into the home who lived there openly as 
concubines. Constant brooding over her unhappiness 
undermined her health, and although she was but a 
young woman, her hair turned snowy white. Since 
her position in her home was becoming more and more 
unendurable, some American friends furnished her 
with transportation and sent her back to America to 
her parents. 

An English lady came out to Japan to visit her 
brother, who was a medical missionary in Tokyo. Soon 
after her arrival in Japan she fell in love with a Jap- 
anese whom she married in spite of the protests of 
friends and relatives. In the course of a few years it 
was discovered that her husband had a Japanese wife 
and family in another part of the city whom he visited 
at frequent intervals. The strain of supporting two 
families was too much for his slender resources, and 
his foreign wife and children would have fared badly 
if her brother had not given them needed financial 
assistance. 

Similar instances as tragic as the above might be 
cited if further proof were required of the unhappiness 
likely to result from such marriages. Dr. Gulick, after 



i62 The Japanese Invasion 

strongly denouncing the theory that Eurasian children 
are of an inferior type, registers his conviction that 
intermarriage of Americans and Japanese is at present 
inadvisable. 

It may be set down as a universal rule that intermar- 
riage of races should follow, not precede, social assimila- 
tion. Suppose that a Japanese man of ordinary social 
rank and corresponding means marries an American wife 
in America and takes her back with him to Japan. He 
has his ideal of a home — a Japanese home — and she 
has hers of an American home. Her position in her 
Japanese home, however, is largely determined by the 
ideals and demands of his mother (her mother-in-law) 
and by all his kindred. Now, for an American girl to 
take up life in a Japanese home, first coming to know it 
in adult years ; for her to begin then to learn the language 
and customs of Japan, to cook and to eat their food, and 
to live entirely as they do, would be such an awful experi- 
ence that, no matter how much her husband might love 
and seek to help her, it would be a fearful ordeal and 
could hardly end in permanent happiness. Her health 
would probably give way under the strain. Moreover, it 
would be impossible for her to impart to her children a 
Japanese social heredity. Although she might seek to 
suppress her social influence, that would be only partly 
possible. The children she rears could not but be partly 
foreign in manner and thought as well as in looks. 

The case, however, would be quite different if the man 
is a wealthy Japanese, with high social rank, who, even in 
Japan, can afford to live and prefers to live in foreign 
style and desires his children to be foreign. The proba- 
bility of a happy marriage would, in this case, be largely 
increased. But unless the Japanese husband adopts to a 
large degree the wife's ideal of the social freedom of 



Problem of Intermarriage 163 

women, the American wife would find her secluded life 
almost intolerable. Such cases are not unknown in Japan. 
The American wife who goes to Japan to live should, of 
course, be prepared to accept the Japanese ideal as to 
the home and the duties, obedience, and responsibilities of 
the Japanese wife. Even though the husband may seek 
to relieve and help her, there are the relatives, and peace 
demands acceptance also of their ideals, or collision will 
result and unhappiness follow.^ 

The fundamental objections to such intermarriage 
must be based upon social considerations — differences 
in standards of living, social customs, family system, 
ideals of home, and even moral standards — rather 
than upon the contention that the offspring are inferior 
in type and show a tendency to degeneracy. No valid 
conclusion can be drawn on the biological side from the 
unfortunate condition of some of the illegitimate Eura- 
sian children found in the ports of Japan. The very 
circumstances in which they were brought up, the atti- 
tude of the better classes of the community toward 
them, would make their degradation almost a matter 
of course. Even the majority of the Eurasian chil- 
dren of the better classes cannot be said to enjoy in 
Japan a favorable opportunity for proper development. 
Prejudice closes many doors in their faces and makes 
it hard for them to succeed unless gifted in a more than 
ordinary way. Detailed studies of the careers of Eura- 
sians in Japan have unfortunately not yet been under- 
taken, but two valuable expressions of opinion on this 

^ The American Japanese Problem, pp. 157-58. 



i64 The Japanese Invasion 

subject have been made by Dr. Baelz and Captain 
Brinkley, two well-known authorities on things Jap- 
anese. Dr. Baelz says: 

As a physician in Tokyo during thirty years I have 
had the opportunity of examining an unusually large 
number of Ainoko (half-breeds) and I have paid par- 
ticular attention to them. The result of my observations 

is that they are a healthy set of people They are, 

on an average, well built, and show no tendency to organic 
disease more than Europeans or Japanese do. This is 
the more remarkable as many of them grow up under 
unfavorable circumstances, the father often having left 
them with little money to the care of a mother who has 
no authority over them. This is a particularly important 
point if the moral qualities are considered. In Europe, 
too, we know that abandoned, illegitimate children very 
often turn out badly, and a fair comparison must take that 
into serious consideration. To make quite sure about the 
intellectual and moral qualities of the Ainoko, I have 
asked the opinion of the man who is more than any other 
qualified to give an authoritative judgment — Mr. Hein- 
rich. Director of the School of the Morning Star. He 
has had in his classes, side by side, Europeans, Japanese, 
and almost all the male half-breeds in Tokyo. His opinion 
is, that if properly brought up and well looked after, the 
half-breeds are morally and intellectually in no way infe- 
rior to the children of both races. As a rule, they are 
taller and more robust than the Japanese, and in every 
branch of learning they are fully up to the standard of 
their fellow scholars.^ 

Captain Brinkley corroborated this testimony in the 
following words: 

^ Quoted In The Empires of the Far East, 2 : 772-74- 



Problem of Intermarriage 165 

We desire to submit .... the following figures, em- 
bodying the results of our own observation, spread over 
some thirty years. The total number of Eurasian chil- 
dren that have been known to us directly or indirectly 
throughout that period is 179. Out of these seven have 
died, and the causes of death were: childbirth, two; ty- 
phoid fever, one ; peritonitis, one ; whooping cough, one ; 
and disease of the lungs, two. Among the remaining 172, 
one is hysterical and two are below the normal standard 
of intelligence, but all three cases are directly attributable 
to an aged, intemperate, or diseased parent. Two of the 
men are mauvais sujets, and one, though now a respect- 
able member of society, sowed a good deal of wild oats 
in his youth. It results, then, that 169 have grown to 
maturity, and we may add that 166 of them are endowed 
with more than the average of normal and physical prop- 
erties, though many have not by any means enjoyed aver- 
age opportunities.^ 

While this testimony seems conclusive as far as the 
normality of the Eurasian children is concerned, a 
more detailed account of their experiences would reveal 
a dark picture of difficulties such children must con- 
tend with while living in Japan. Without doubt there 
exists in Japan, among both the Japanese and the 
foreigners residing there, a much stronger prejudice 
against intermarriage than is usually found in Amer- 
ica. The foreign communities in cities like Tokyo and 
Yokohama show their intolerant attitude in such a 
marked way that social isolation is the usual lot of 
Eurasian families. The Japanese show, if possible, 

^ Quoted in The Empires of the Far East, 2 : 772-744. 



i66 The Japanese Invasion 

even greater intolerance, as would be natural among a 
people who are not accustomed to mixed marriages 
even with nations as closely allied with their own as 
the Chinese and Koreans. 

In America, while the feeling, at least outside of 
California, is less bitter, the general consensus of 
opinion that the Asiatic is not our equal socially causes 
such marriages to be regarded as highly unfortunate. 
The social discrimination which all Japanese, includ- 
ing even students in university circles, must face, 
makes practically impossible any general tendency to 
marry into American families. In a university town 
of the Middle West a popular American girl found 
herself almost entirely "cut" by her social set because 
she persisted in publicly associating with a Japanese 
fellow student. Both of the young people were thor- 
oughly in love with each other, but the idea of marriage 
was finally abandoned because of the earnest protest 
of friends. It is very evident that it is the social taboo 
rather than any innate feeling of repulsion that pre- 
vents amalgamation from taking place. 

Some Japanese, however, claim that American 
women are not attractive to them and that they would 
never be chosen in preference to women of their own 
race. The fact that American women are as a rule 
larger than Japanese men, together with the striking 
contrast between the characteristic independence of 
American wives and the submissiveness of Japanese 
wives, would seem to be a sufficient explanation of 
this feeling in so far as it really exists. But even after 



Problem of Intermarriage 167 

due consideration is given to the influence of differ- 
ences in ideals of beauty, intellectual traits, and family 
customs, it still remains true that the real bar to inter- 
marriage is the strong feeling of disapproval that is so 
widely prevalent. Japanese residing in America seldom 
have the opportunity of meeting and associating with 
the best type of American girls. The association that 
leads to marriage is most frequently made possible by 
business relationships of various kinds. The Japanese 
may be a lodger or servant in the home where girls 
of a marriageable age live ; he may become acquainted 
with them as stenographers or clerks in his office or' 
store ; or he may be thrown in contact with chamber- 
maids and waitresses while employed in hotels and 
restaurants. Even in these cases the courtship cannot 
be carried on publicly without provoking serious criti- 
cism, and as a natural consequence intermarriages are- 
infrequent. 

According to the best figures obtainable, there are 
about three hundred Japanese- American families now 
living in America, fifty on the western coast and two 
hundred and fifty scattered throughout the eastern 
states. Some prominent Japanese are numbered among 
them, men like Mr. Kawakami, Dr. Takamine, Consul 
Kurusu, and others who have married into good Amer- 
ican families, and who possess the financial ability and 
prestige to maintain comfortable American homes. 
By far the majority of such marriages have been made 
by Japanese of the middle or lower classes, and the 
women who have consented to share their lot have 



i68 The Japanese Invasion 

largely been drawn from the ranks of European 
immigrants. 

In California a strict law exists against such mar- 
riages, and in all parts of the country they are regarded 
as a serious violation of the social code. 

The following examples of mixed marriages that 
have taken place in America may be regarded as fairly 
typical, and give a more vivid picture of actual condi- 
tions than would any amount of theorizing. 

A Japanese student, a member of a prominent 
family, while attending Dennison University in Ohio, 
joined a fraternity and was encouraged by his friends 
to participate in social functions. A young lady who 
lived in the house where he had secured a room asso- 
ciated with him freely, and in course of time they 
became engaged. The Japanese then wrote to his 
parents for permission to arrange for his marriage, a 
request that so angered his father that his financial 
allowance was entirely stopped. When the young 
lady's parents heard of this, they broke off the engage- 
ment. The young man, who found himself suddenly 
thrown upon his own resources, left college, went to 
Columbus, Ohio, and secured employment in an amuse- 
ment park. While there he became acquainted with 
an American girl of doubtful reputation, whom he 
married, the ceremony, in the hope of avoiding pub- 
licity, being performed by an obscure colored minister. 
The minister, however, told of the affair, and the 
newspapers published scathing criticisms of the mar- 
riage. In a few days the Japanese left his bride, partly 



Problem of Intermarriage 169 

because of the unpleasant notoriety, and disappeared 
from the city. He finally drifted back to Japan, where 
he became involved in a love affair with a geisha girl 
and ended his life by committing suicide. 

A Japanese traveling for a Japanese business house 
became acquainted in St. Louis with an American girl 
whom he later married. She was an orphan, with few 
friends, and entered upon the marriage with no thought 
of what it involved. Since her husband did not earn 
much money, she supplemented the income by working 
as a nurse. Because of their unsettled life, they have 
not set up housekeeping. In some places they have 
found considerable difficulty in renting rooms. In 
spite of the prejudice which they have had to face, 
they seem to be happy. They have no children. 

A Japanese established a small restaurant in a city 
in Indiana and hired as a waitress a Polish girl who 
was unable to speak much English. In the course of 
time the two fell in love with each other and were 
married, an arrangement which proved satisfactory at 
least from a business standpoint. 

A Japanese photographer with fair income married 
an American girl and moved to Chicago. They found 
prejudice so strong against them that they were for a 
time unable to rent a satisfactory apartment. 

A Japanese engaged in the tea business in Chicago 
married an American girl who has been able to adapt 
herself successfully to Japanese ways. Because of 
the difficulty in securing an apartment, they bought a 
small home on the installment plan and have made it 



170 The Japanese Invasion 

a very attractive place. They have two small children 
who resemble their father in physical appearance. The 
children living in the neighborhood do not play with 
them readily. Although they do not have many 
friends, the family seems to be perfectly happy. 

A Japanese employed as a butler in the home of an 
Episcopal clergyman in California succeeded in win- 
wing the love of the daughter of the house, a very 
accomplished and popular girl. As the laws of Cali- 
fornia would not permit their marriage, they went to 
Seattle, where the ceremony was performed. A few 
months later a child was born. The marriage has 
proved to be very unhappy. 

A Japanese while employed as butler by a wealthy 
family near Palo Alto, California, became acquainted 
with their seamstress, a woman of English birth, 
thirty-seven years of age, who was generally described 
as unusually ugly and "queer." Considerable gossip 
was caused by his attentions to her. Several months 
later they were married and lived in the lodge of the 
family where they had previously worked, the Japanese 
still retaining his position as butler. They have a 
daughter now about ten years old. 

A Japanese doctor, a masseur, married an American 
girl and is now living in a city of the Middle West. 
He is very successful in his profession and is well liked 
by the people who know him. Because of his popu- 
larity and his ability to support his family comfort- 
ably, the marriage has aroused very little unfavorable 
comment. 



Problem of Intermarriage 171 

A Japanese boy worked in a Chinese restaurant in 
Minneapolis, where he received good wages and was 
able to save some money. In order to have social 
diversion, he learned to dance, and at a public ball 
became acquainted with an American girl with whom 
he fell in love. He wrote to Japan for permission to 
marry her, but was told that if he did so he would 
be disowned. Although his parents have offered to 
send him a Japanese bride, he has thus far refused 
to give up his American girl, and still hopes to marry 
her. 

It can readily be seen from these examples that when 
these marriages take place on the lower levels of society 
the parties concerned face a serious handicap which 
it is hard for them to overcome. Prejudice usually 
thrives best among the more ignorant and lower 
classes, and those who are the victims of this preju- 
dice are seldom able to rise above it. So keenly do 
some of these Japanese- American couples feel the 
power of social disapproval that they rarely appear 
together in public. If they enter the same street car, 
they will occupy different seats. In communities where 
Japanese children are popular, the Japanese-American 
children are likely not to enjoy this same popularity, 
but are sharply discriminated against by the American 
children living in their neighborhood. 

In order that intermarriage prove successful it is 
not only necessary that there be congeniality and a 
sufficient income to make possible the maintenance of 
a good standard of living, but it is also of the highest 



172 The Japanese Invasion 

importance that those who enter into such marriages 
should possess a personahty and strength of character 
that can win friends in spite of prejudice and rise 
above the petty insults and social discrimination they 
must face. The problem of mutual adjustment is 
naturally a more difficult matter when the contracting 
parties are members of a different race. The real 
difficulty is, however, that the problem is only half 
settled when an adjustment is satisfactorily made. 
Public opinion will not allow it to remain a merely 
personal matter. The social code has been violated, 
and the penalty of outraged social feelings must be 
paid. What this means in bitterness of heart and in 
lifelong unhappiness varies according to the character 
of the persons involved and the locality in which they 
live, but it is something from which they can never 
entirely escape. 

Nevertheless, in spite of all the arguments that 
might be brought against intermarriage, we must be 
prepared to take a broader view of the problem than 
is ordinarily done. Race prejudice, or national preju- 
dice, or even color prejudice, will not ultimately be 
allowed to say the final word. In these modern times 
the whole world is being brought more closely together. 
What this will mean in the breaking down of national 
lines and in the furthering of the process of amalga- 
mation, only the future can reveal. The following 
statement by Dr. Conklin, professor of biology in 
Princeton University, expresses clearly a scientific 
view of the problem which is of deep significance in 



Problem of Intermarriage 173 

connection with the increasing contact of the peoples 
of the East and West : 



In the human species the only absolute barrier to the 
intermingling of races is geographical isolation. Every 
human race is fertile with every other one, and though 
races and nations and social groups may raise artificial 
barriers against interbreeding, we know that these arti- 
ficial restraints are frequently disregarded and that in the 
long run amalgamation does take place 

Whether we want it or not, hybridization of human 
races is going on and will increase. Partition walls 
between classes and races are being broken down ; com- 
plete isolation is no longer possible, and a gradual inter- 
mixture of human races is inevitable. We are in the 
grip of a great world movement and we cannot reverse 
the current, but we may to a certain extent direct that 
current into the more desirable channels. 

There is a popular belief that hybrid races are always 
inferior to pure-bred ones, but this is by no means the 
case. Some hybrids are undoubtedly inferior to either 
of the parents, but, on the other hand, some are vastly 
superior; only experience can determine whether a cer- 
tain cross will yield inferior or superior types. Society 
can well attempt to prevent those crosses which pro- 
duce inferior stock, while encouraging those which 
produce superior types. 

It is this fact which makes the problem of immigration 
so serious. In general, immigration is regarded merely as 
an economic and political problem, but these aspects of it 
are temporary and insignificant as compared with its bio- 
logical consequences. In welcoming the immigrant to our 
shores we not only share with him our country but we 
take him into our family and give to him our children 
or our children's children in marriage. Whatever the 



174 The Japanese Invasion 

present antipathies may be to our racial mixture we may 
rest assured that in a few hundred years these persons of 
foreign race and blood will be incorporated in our race 
and we in theirs. From the amalgamation of good races 
good results may be expected; but fusion with inferior 
races, while it may help to raise the lower race, is very 
apt to pull the higher race down. How insignificant are 
considerations of cheap labor and rapid development of 
natural resources when compared with these biological 
consequences.^ 

^ Conklin, E. G., Heredity and Environment in the Development 
of Men, pp. 417-19. 



CHAPTER X 

THE JAPANESE IN AMERICA AS A RACE PROBLEM 

^TT^HE Japanese invasion of America, while insig- 
-^ nificant as far as numbers are concerned, has 
brought this country face to face with a serious prob- 
lem which does not admit of an easy solution. It has 
meant the coming of a people too different from our- 
selves to gain ready acceptance on terms of social 
equality, and yet too proud to occupy a position that 
would imply their inferiority. Similar invasions on a 
much larger scale by European immigrants have con- 
fronted us with various problems. But however low 
their social and economic status may be, the Europeans 
at least belong to nations that have much in common 
with us and against whom there exists no such deep- 
seated prejudice as is generally felt for the Asiatics. 
It is this that differentiates our oriental problem from 
the general immigration problem and makes it difficult 
to apply the same policy to both. 

A calm recognition of facts makes clear the inevi- 
tability of Americans' preference for European immi- 
grants. America and Europe are bound closely together 
by common ties of blood, customs, and traditions. 
America is what it is today largely because of what 
it has received from Europe. For more than a cen- 
tury an increasing stream of European immigrants 

175 



176 The Japanese Invasion 

has been pouring into our cities and permeating the 
social life of the whole nation. Our open-door policy 
has become a sentiment among us to a larger extent 
than is often realized. We still like to look upon 
America as a haven for the oppressed in Europe, an 
attitude that is the more easily perpetuated because 
many of our population are either immigrants or 
recent descendants of immigrants with ties of blood 
and friendship binding them to the people of the 
Old World. 

Our attitude toward the Japanese immigrant is 
entirely the reverse. As far as past history and tradi- 
tions are concerned the Japanese have little in common 
with us, and the type of civilization they have built 
up differs greatly from ours. There is no sentimental 
bond binding us to them as is the case with the people 
of Europe. Already overcrowded as we feel ourselves 
to be with European immigrants, we are in no mood 
to silence the voice of economic warning and grant 
the same privileges to Asiatics that we do to Euro- 
peans, Here, it is felt, is a good place to draw the line 
that cannot yet be drawn against the European immi- 
grants because of the prestige of past precedent and 
ties of common race. Human nature being as it is, 
the first discrimination would naturally be against 
those with whom we have least in common. Whether 
in the dealings of nations or in those of individuals, fa- 
vors are almost inevitably shown to those to whom we 
are most closely attached. In one aspect our treatment 
of the Japanese is merely the reception of a stranger 



Japanese as a Race Problem 177 

in a home whose doorway is already overcrowded 
with friends demanding the continuance of past hos- 
pitaHty. 

Europe, it also should be remembered, is a smaller 
country than Asia and has a much smaller population. 
We have no great fear of being overrun by the people 
of Europe. The teeming Asiatic millions, however, 
eager and likely, if not prevented, to come to America 
in hordes, is a picture that has impressed itself so 
deeply upon our minds that a vague feeling of fear is 
always associated with the thought of Asiatic immi- 
gration. Whether these feelings are justified or not, 
they do exist, and are partly responsible for our 
unwillingness to allow these strangers from the East 
to get a foothold in our midst. 

But this discussion only hints at a more fundamental 
issue which is involved in our Japanese problem. The 
real cause of the discrimination against the Japanese 
is that they belong to a race which in color and physical 
characteristics is so sharply distinguished from the 
people of the West that they cannot merge themselves 
unnoticed into American life. Wherever they appear, 
the most evident fact about them is that they are 
Japanese. In their dress and speech and manner they 
may conduct themselves so much like Americans that 
they would not attract the least unfavorable attention 
if it were not that their external racial differences mark 
them out and stand as a symbol of the undesirable 
qualities we have been accustomed to associate with 
the lower classes of Asiatics. This point has been well 



178 The Japanese Invasion 

brought out by Dr. Robert E. Park in his recent dis- 
cussion of racial assimilation : 

The chief obstacles to the assimilation of the Negro and 
the Oriental are not mental but physical traits. It is not 
because the Negro and the Japanese are so differently con- 
stituted that they do not assimilate. If they were given an 
opportunity the Japanese are quite as capable as the 
Italians, the Armenians, or the Slavs of acquiring our 
culture and sharing our national ideals. The trouble is 
not v^^ith the Japanese mind but with the Japanese skin. 
The Jap is not the right color. The fact that the Jap- 
anese bears in his features a distinctive racial hall mark, 
that he wears, so to speak, a racial uniform, classifies him. 
He cannot become a mere individual indistinguishable in 
the cosmopolitan mass of the population, as is true, for 
example, of the Irish and to a lesser extent of some of 
the other immigrant races. The Japanese, like the Negro, 
is condemned to remain among us an abstraction, a sym- 
bol, and a symbol not merely of his own race but of the 
Orient and of that vague, ill-defined menace we some- 
times refer to as the "Yellow Peril." This not only 
determines to a very large extent the attitude of the whole 
world toward the yellow man, but it determines the atti- 
tude of the yellow man to the white. It puts between the 
races the invisible but very real gulf of self -conscious- 
ness.^ 

The significance of this aspect of the Japanese 
problem has not been sufficiently emphasized. Those 
who have regarded the problem as fundamentally 
racial have usually based their arguments on mental 
rather than physical grounds. The claim that they 

1 Park, R. E., " Racial Assimilation in Secondary Groups," 
Amer. Journ. Soc, March, 1914, pp. 610-11. 



Japanese as a Race Problem 179 

put forth is that the Japanese are incompatible with 
American civilization because of their mental traits, 
mode of life, and ways of doing things, an argument 
that is by no means convincing, because it can be 
shown that all these characteristics are a result of social 
heredity, and therefore are capable of being modified 
in a new environment. It is not a mere matter of 
capacity for mental assimilation. This is all that is 
involved in the case of the European immigrants, who 
do not diverge radically from the physical type most 
common in the West. When they have adopted Amer- 
ican standards and ways of living, they are to all 
outward appearance American citizens and become 
accepted members of American communities. The 
problem, however, is not so simple for the Orientals. 
They may show just as much skill as the Europeans 
in making a place for themselves in their new environ- 
ment. The Japanese, as a matter of fact, are peculiarly 
responsive to strange surroundings, and, if given a 
fair chance, might surpass other nationalities in their 
ability to acquire American culture. But the difficulty 
is that they are not given a fair chance. Belonging 
as they do to a divergent physical type, they are set 
apart in a group of their own, and are denied the best 
opportunities for assimilation. Even though they 
overcome this handicap and succeed in Americanizing 
themselves, they still to all outward appearance remain 
Japanese and are classified as such by those with whom 
they associate. 

The possession of racial marks or of physical char- 



i8o The Japanese Invasion 

acteristics that differentiate the incoming from the 
predominant group is a factor in the oriental immi- 
gration problem that cannot be ignored. The im- 
migrants whose ph3^sical appearance is such that they 
cannot within a reasonable time conceal their identity 
by the mask of Americanism inevitably bring in a race 
problem. Entirely apart from the question of differ- 
ences in the type of civilization, the German and the 
Japanese immigrants cannot be regarded as having an 
equal chance in their struggle for existence under 
American conditions. In the one case prejudice dis- 
appears as soon as the necessary adjustments are made, 
while in the other it tends to be perpetuated because 
external marks continually proclaim their foreign 
origin and arouse the antipathies that are felt for 
people of a widely different race. 

It is not a question whether their physical character- 
istics are attractive or repulsive to Americans. The 
problem is not lessened by the fact that the color of 
the Japanese is hardly more pronounced than is that 
of the people of southern Europe. Even when due 
allowance is made for their changes in physical appear- 
ance brought about by their reaction to their new 
environment — changes in the cast of countenance and 
in the peculiar mannerisms which play an important 
part in intensifying racial distinctions — the funda- 
mental fact still remains that their physical type marks 
them out as Orientals wherever they are, and suggests 
to us all the undesirable connotations that are bound 
up with the word ** Asiatics." 



Japanese as a Race Problem i8i 

It is only by a recognition of this fact that the eco- 
nomic issue which complicates the problem can be seen 
in its right perspective. It has become the fashion in 
some quarters to ignore or minimize differences of 
race and to treat the question as though it were merely 
a matter for economic adjustment. Thus Dr. Clay 
MacCauley in a recent article published in a Japanese 
magazine says : 

As I see it, " The American- Japanese Problem," how- 
ever much other factors may affect it, is primarily and 

essentially economic It is altogether a radical error 

to burden this economic question with an influence so 
irrelevant and, in reality, so fictitious as " difference of 
race." The issue is essentially economic, and upon eco- 
nomic grounds it should, and I believe will, receive its 
solution.^ 

Such a point of view which would regard racial 
differences as irrelevant factors is based more upon 
what ought to be than upon what actually seems to be 
the case. In the rise and development of the Japanese 
problem nothing has been more real than the preju- 
dice existing against the Japanese. It has been the 
agitation against them as a race which has given this 
problem its peculiar quality. The economic aspect of 
the question has, of course, been an important factor, 
for the Japanese immigrants have been engaged in a 
struggle for existence that has naturally aroused the 
fear of severe economic competition. It is, however, 

1 MacCauley, Clay, " The American- Japanese Problem," Rikugo 
Zasshi, April, 191 5. 



i82 The Japanese Invasion 

a superficial view which would find the root of the 
problem in economic rivalry. The discrimination 
against the Japanese, which has debarred them from 
many of the desirable trades, is economic in the sense 
that it is an attempt to decrease competition, but it has 
been made possible only by the fact that the Japanese 
are unable to conceal their race afiiliations. If they 
had been able, like the Europeans, gradually to merge 
themselves unnoticed among Am.erican workingmen, 
there would have been much less tendency to over- 
emphasize the economic difficulties. 

As a matter of fact, within the past few years the 
chief economic problems connected with the Japanese 
immigrants have been to a large extent adjusted. With 
the coming into effect of the " gentlemen's agreement," 
the people of California need no longer fear an inva- 
sion of Japanese laborers. Thousands of Japanese 
have succeeded in making a place for themselves in 
the kind of agricultural work that is not attractive to 
white workmen, and so are not considered as rivals. 
Many large ranch owners have found the Japanese 
so satisfactory as seasonal farm laborers that they are 
making strong protests against any policy designed to 
cut off all Japanese immigration. As the Japanese 
have become more accustomed to American conditions 
they have raised their standard of living and are no 
longer making a practice of underbidding in the labor 
market. Yet in spite of this lessened economic fric- 
tion, the prejudice against the Japanese remains, seem-, 
ingly, as strong as ever. Even in places where there 



Japanese as a Race Problem 183 

is practically no competition with the Japanese, there 
are very few signs that racial barriers are breaking 
down. They are still held aloof, not primarily on eco- 
nomic grounds, but because they wear a racial uniform 
which stands as a symbol of all the vague, half- 
conscious fears, as well as of the feeling of strange- 
ness and unlikeness that we have had for the Orientals. 

It is this same fact of a divergent physical type that 
intensifies many minor causes of difficulty which other- 
wise would not attract serious attention. The low 
status of many of the Japanese immigrants, their agi- 
tation for their rights, their tendency toward clannish- 
ness, their reputation for business dishonesty, their 
overzealous patriotism, and their religious differences 
easily become magnified out of all due proportions 
because they are associated with the people of a race 
widely different from our own. In themselves these 
supposed characteristics of the Japanese do not pos- 
sess great importance. They can, in fact, be affirmed 
of many of our immigrants from Europe, and are 
merely factors that enter into the immigration problem 
as a whole. 

Their increased significance in the case of the 
Japanese arises from the fact that they must live 
among us as a separate racial group, thus making it 
inevitable that the undesirable attributes of the few 
should be regarded as peculiar to the whole race. This 
has been the real reason why the organized campaign 
against the Japanese in California has been carried 
on with such a large degree of success. The labor 



184 The Japanese Invasion 

leaders and the politicians could never have made the 
Japanese problem a national one without the aid of 
this background of racial difference. The economic 
difficulties and the various charges against the Japa- 
nese which were used as campaign issues gained their 
significance because the Japanese could be easily dis- 
tinguished as a separate group from among the mass 
of the American people. 

When due recognition is given to this fact, the diffi- 
culty of arriving at a satisfactory solution is easily 
seen. It is not merely a matter of economic adjust- 
ment, although this is highly important. More is 
involved than the promotion of a better mutual under- 
standing between the people of the two countries. The 
fundamental problem is how to make possible the 
mingling of the white and colored races on terms of 
social equality based on mutual friendship and good 
will. This is an experiment that has never yet been 
worked out satisfactorily in any part of the world, 
whether with the dark races from Africa or with the 
more light-colored peoples of the Far East. When- 
ever there has been a meeting of the white and colored 
races, the whites have always assumed an attitude of 
superiority, regardless of the ability and the state of 
culture of their colored associates. 

The Japanese are the first among the colored peoples 
to possess sufficient national prestige and military 
power to make a strong protest against this humiliat- 
ing treatment. Instead of acquiescing in the position 
assigned them, as, on the whole, the great mass of 



Japanese as a Race Problem 185 

the Negroes seem disposed to do, they have taken a 
bold stand for their rights and insist that there shall 
be no discrimination against them. Back of all their 
demands in connection with the problem of immigra- 
tion is their determination to be received and treated 
as equals in every way, both socially and politically. 
No matter what terms they may be willing to accept 
now for the sake of expediency, they will ultimately 
be satisfied with nothing less than the recognition of 
manhood equality with all that it involves in the way 
of political rights and social intercourse. 

It is, of course, obvious that a problem of this nature 
cannot be solved entirely by legislation. Even though 
laws were enacted guaranteeing to the Japanese all 
the rights now enjoyed by Europeans, the present ten- 
sion between the two nations would by no means be 
relieved. On the contrary, to the extent that the 
Japanese would avail themselves of their opportunity 
to emigrate to America in unrestricted numbers, fric- 
tion would increase and would likely lead to unfor- 
tunate results. The necessity of restricted immigration 
must be recognized. Says Professor Millis : 

Injury would come to both parties in the event that 
immigration brought any considerable number of Asiatics 
to our shores to share the soil with the elements in the 
white population of the West. Any immigration policy 
adopted must be based upon a recognition of this fact. 
Otherwise it will only create problems ; it will not solve 
them.^ 

1 Millis, H. A., The Japanese Problem in the United States, p. 



i86 The Japanese Invasion 

Dr. Gulick states this same point in an even more 
forcible way: 

Were immigration as freely granted to Asiatics as it has 
been to Europeans, the Pacific coast states would un- 
doubtedly be invaded by millions in the course of a few 
years. Coming by the hundred thousand annually, they 
could not learn our language, nor we theirs. Assimila- 
tion and mutual understanding would be impossible. The 
result would be Asiatic and American institutions and 
customs struggling side by side, an imperium in imperio, 
with endless rivalry and serious danger of collision.^ 

It is generally agreed that legislation designed to 
grant the Japanese the rights they desire to obtain 
would result only in a more aggravated situation. On 
the other hand, the passage of an exclusion law, or 
even the continuance of the existing "gentlemen's 
agreement," is objectionable to the Japanese because 
of its discrimination against them. In order to avoid 
this dilemma and make possible restriction without 
discrimination, Dr. Gulick has proposed the enactment 
of a general immigration law which would apply 
impartially to all nations. 

A law which would, in his opinion, meet the needs of 
the case has been stated by him in the form of the fol- 
lowing amendment to the Immigration Act now in 
force : 

Provided, That the number of aliens of any race (single 
mother-tongue group), who may be admitted to the 
United States in any fiscal year shall be limited to five 

*From an address delivered before the Senate Committee on 
Immigration and Naturalization, Jan. 31, 1914. 



Japanese as a Race Problem 187 

per cent of the number of native-born persons of the first 
generation, together with the number of naturalized citi- 
zens of that race in the United States at the time of the 
national census next preceding ; except that aliens return- 
ing from a temporary visit abroad; aliens coming to join 
a husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter, grand- 
father, grandmother, grandson, granddaughter; aliens 
who are government officers, and aliens who are travelers 
or visitors and who do not engage in any remunerative 
occupation or business in the United States, shall not be 
included within the five per cent limit above provided. 
Provided, further, that all laws relative to the exclusion 
of Chinese persons or persons of Chinese descent are 
hereby repealed.^ 

The fundamental purpose of this proposed law is to 
make possible the treatment of all races on the basis of 
equality, and at the same time to prevent the coming 
of a larger number of immigrants from any one race 
than could be readily assimilated. As it would practi- 
cally work out, it would allow full immigration from 
the countries of northern Europe except Russia, would 
decrease the number of immigrants from southern 
Europe about eighty per cent, and would permit about 
one thousand each year to come from China and the 
same number from Japan. While such a law theo- 
retically seems adapted to meet the present situation, 
it is such a radical departure from our traditional 
policy concerning European immigration that it is 
doubtful if in the near future it would receive the 
support of the American public. It contains the impH- 

1 From address before the Senate Committee on Immigration 
and Naturalization, Jan. 31, 1914. 



i88 The Japanese Invasion 

cation that the very evident and practical differences 
between the Asiatic and European immigration are not 
of sufficient importance to deserve recognition. There 
is in it also the tacit assumption that all alien peoples 
have the right to equal treatment, irrespective of what 
may seem to be to the best interests of all concerned. 
The possible effects of this upon our rights of sover- 
eignty, as well as upon our international status, ought 
to be carefully weighed before the adoption of such 
a change in our immigration policy. Furthermore, 
such a law is unlikely to prove pleasing to the Japanese 
people, who to all practical intents and purposes, even 
if not theoretically, would be discriminated against 
because they would still be deprived of the privilege 
of coming to the United States to a much greater 
extent than would the majority of the European 
peoples. It would seem far better to recognize frankly 
the existence of a different problem in the Asiatic 
immigration that makes necessary for the present the 
adoption of a special policy which can only gradually 
approximate that designed to regulate the immigration 
from Europe. 

Efforts to secure legislation that would ignore the 
existence of race factors may not be the best means 
of overcoming race prejudice. On the contrary, such 
legislation, unless it is satisfactory to those most 
vitally affected by it, would involve us in more serious 
difficulties. Laws designed to remove the disabilities 
of the Japanese can by no means be regarded as the 
final solution of the problem. The fault is not pri- 



Japanese as a Race Problem 189 

marily with our laws, but with our attitude of mind 
toward the eastern races. Notwithstanding the tend- 
ency in some quarters to ignore it, our attitude toward 
the Oriental is very different from our attitude toward 
the European. The natural feeling of difference of 
race that is called out by the presence of any foreigner 
is intensified in the case of the Orientals by the fact 
that we instinctively place them in a different social 
category from ourselves. We are ready to admire 
their skill in art and have a wholesome respect for 
their military efficiency, but we feel quite sure that 
they do not belong in our social circle. In the minds 
of many Westerners the Orientals seem mysterious 
and uncanny — inhabitants, so to speak, of another 
world, with whom we do not care to associate and 
about whose accomplishments we have a tendency to 
manifest surprise. Their different physical type pre- 
vents them from becoming an indistinguishable part 
of our American population, and this aids in perpet- 
uating this feeling of their strangeness and inferiority. 
As long as such a feeling as this exists to any general 
extent, legislation, however favorable to the Japanese, 
will be of little avail in giving them full entrance into 
all the privileges and opportunities of American life.^ 

1 Viscount Kaneko in a recent letter to Dr. Shailer Mathews 
voiced this same opinion : " I feel that so long as the racial 
prejudice is dominating the question, the change of heart of the 
people is necessary. Until that was accomplished, no matter what 
treaty or diplomatic agreement might be reached between the two 
governments concerning the question, it could not be regarded as 
a final solution of the problem." — The Biblical World, June, 1915. 



190 The Japanese Invasion 

The first step toward a solution of the Japanese 
problem must be a willingness on the part of both 
Japanese and Americans to recognize the importance 
of the racial factors involved. This is naturally a 
sensitive point with the Japanese, for they are in the 
position of outsiders trying to get accepted in a more 
attractive social circle. Any suggestion that the real 
difficulty is racial implies their lack of the necessary 
qualifications and, of course, arouses their resentment. 
In order to avoid giving offense, the fact of race differ- 
ences is usually kept in the background, except by those 
who are strongly anti- Japanese. During the negotia- 
tions at Washington in 191 3 between Viscount Chinda 
and the Federal government concerning the California 
alien land law, the Japanese ambassador was given 
repeated assurances by both the President and the 
Secretary of State that "the enactment was based on 
purely economic considerations and was not the out- 
come of racial prejudice." This official hypocrisy may 
perhaps be justified on diplomatic grounds, but it can 
hardly be contended that such declarations convince 
anybody, least of all the Japanese, that race prejudice 
has played such an insignificant part in the American- 
Japanese problem. The fact that race prejudice is 
always unreasoning, that it is found in its most virulent 
form among the lower classes, and that it betrays a 
narrowness of mind and a provincialism incompatible 
with an ideal state of culture, does not justify us in 
minimizing its importance or in pretending that it does 
not exist. Such a policy results only in further mis- 



Japanese as a Race Problem 191 

understandings and in more strained relations because 
of its lack of frankness and sincerity. 

The fact that the fundamental point at issue is a 
problem of race need not make us despair of finding 
a satisfactory way out. Race prejudice is not so deeply 
rooted that it cannot be eradicated. It is largely a 
superficial matter and tends to break down with con- 
stant association. In so far as our antipathy to the 
Japanese is based upon their strangeness and their lack 
of conformity to our western type, it will gradually 
disappear as the two races become more familiar with 
each other. Even now the peculiar physiognomy of 
the Japanese is not repulsive to us. It arouses preju- 
dice largely because it stands as a symbol of the Orient, 
continually reminding us of the gulf between the two 
races. 

While all this tends to break down in time, under 
favorable conditions, we must not forget that a satis- 
factory solution will not follow necessarily as a matter 
of course. When strong prejudice exists against such 
a clever and ambitious people as the Japanese, there 
is a real danger that the final result will not be assimi- 
lation, but mere adaptation. Instead of becoming a 
real part of all our varied activities, they may be driven 
into a separate group that is compelled to maintain 
itself by feeding upon rather than furthering the 
interests of the American community. They will never 
occupy the subordinate position we assign to the 
Negroes and be content to do the drudgery expected 
of inferiors. Their reaction to segregation will more 



192 The Japanese Invasion 

likely be similar to that of the Jews, who, in spite of 
their many excellent qualities, have tended to make a 
place for themselves in the European countries where 
prejudice against them was strongest by taking advan- 
tage of the moral weakness and disorganization of 
the people among whom they lived. A clever people 
like the Japanese will make a place for themselves in 
America in spite of all obstacles. Just what will be 
the nature of the place that our race prejudice will 
compel them to occupy is worthy of serious con- 
sideration. 

This suggests the importance of a strict limitation 
of the problem by bringing about the mingling of the 
people of the East and the West only under circum- 
stances most favorable to a proper appreciation of each 
other's essential character. In order to bring this 
about, patience as well as mutual forbearance is neces- 
sary. The Japanese must see the wisdom of permitting 
only the best representatives of their race to come to 
America. We Americans, on our part, must rise above 
our petty provincialism which makes us unwilling to 
recognize true worth in men of different race. It is 
too much to expect that either nation will suddenly 
make such a radical change in its attitude. The best 
that we can hope is that wise statesmanship will guide 
the policies of the two countries while necessary ad- 
justments are being made in their international rela- 
tions. Race problems admit of no categorical solution 
by the fiat of the legislator or by the exhortations of 
peace advocates, for they gain their strength from 



Japanese as a Race Problem 193 

slow-moving and powerful forces that have made 
possible the development of race solidarity. The 
American- Japanese problem must be worked out by a 
gradual process which it may take generations in order 
to make complete. 

In the meantime nothing is more fraught with peril 
than the continuance of our present half-hearted and 
irresolute policy toward the Far East. We are so 
obsessed with our feelings of self-sufficiency and supe- 
riority that we fail to appreciate the real significance 
of the oriental problem. We seem to lose sight of the 
fact that the few thousand Orientals in our country 
are but the vanguard of many millions in Asia who 
are eagerly awaiting the chance to cross the Pacific. 
The movement is one that it will be difficult to repress, 
because the motive force behind it is economic — the 
struggle for existence under conditions that are too 
hard to be borne. 

From the standpoint of Asia the problem is of vital 
importance. It is the outward thrust of a surplus 
population seeking a better place for itself in the 
world. When this oriental horde reaches America it 
is inevitable that the situation should be further com- 
plicated by the factor of racial conflict. The Orientals 
face here a different civilization, and cannot be readily 
assimilated because of differences of race. The in- 
creased economic competition and their lower standards 
of living intensify the racial animosities and make 
more remote the possibility of a satisfactory solution. 

For two generations a few thousand Chinese have 



194 The Japanese Invasion 

been living among us, and hardly a step has been made 
toward their assimilation. After twenty-five years' 
contact with such an adaptable people as the Japanese, 
we find them still forced to live in segregation, deprived 
of the best opportunities for success in our industrial 
life. In spite of this, the Japanese insist upon their 
right to enter America. Back of their insistence is the 
pressure of economic necessity, which is being increas- 
ingly felt throughout the whole Orient. To the sig- 
nificance of this situation we remain blindly indifferent. 
Our present temporizing policy, together with our lack 
of military preparedness, is earning for us the con- 
tempt of the Far East, and may help to precipitate the 
conflict we are trying to avoid. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE WORLD SIGNIFICANCE OF WAKING ASIA 

WHAT Japan has now to do is to keep perfectly quiet, 
to lull the suspicions that have arisen against her, 
and to wait, meanwhile strengthening the foundations of 
her national power, watching and waiting for the oppor- 
tunity which must one day surely come in the Orient. 
When that day arrives, she will be able to follow her own 
course; not only able to put meddling Powers in their 
places, but even, as necessity arises, to meddle with the 
affairs of other Powers. Then truly she will be able to 
reap advantage for herself. — Count Hayashi. 

We have no choice, we people of the United States, as 
to whether or not we shall play a great part in the world. 
That has been determined for us by fate, by the march of 
events. We have to play that part. All that we can 
decide is whether we shall play it well or ill. — Roosevelt. 

As students of the West we are vitally concerned with 
the awakening of half our world. Whether we will or not 
the East is upon us. For good or evil, Asia is at our 
door. We must help to solve the problem we have done 
so much to create, and for the solution of which we hold 
the key. — Sherwood Eddy. 

That Asia is awake and is becoming increasingly 
conscious of its strength is a fact that can no longer 
be ignored. For many years the West has found it 
very convenient and quite to its own interest to regard 

195 



196 The Japanese Invasion 

the Orient as a sleeping giant which could be exploited 
or insulted as the occasion seemed to demand. It has 
been assumed that the white man, because of his supe- 
rior intelligence and culture, has the first right to all 
the desirable places in the world; that men of color 
should do the bidding of the white man and contribute 
to his prosperity; that our self-imposed task of uplift- 
ing these backward races should atone for any seeming 
wrong and injustice that we may cause them to suffer. 
Such assumptions have proved so advantageous to the 
West that we have been loath to believe that the revo- 
lutionary changes in the East have any serious signifi- 
cance for us. While Japan's rapid growth in military 
power, her victory over a western nation, and her 
imperialistic ambitions have provoked much comment 
in Europe and America, there has been too little effort 
made to see the bearing of it all upon the future rela- 
tions of the East and the West. 

In many quarters it has been the tendency to regard 
the awakening in Asia as confined largely to Japan 
alone. Western writers usually describe the Japanese 
as a peculiarly adaptable people who possess far more 
than other Orientals the gift of profiting by contact 
with foreign civilization. When our attention is called 
to a possible yellow peril, we comfort ourselves with 
the thought that ambitious Japan is only a small island 
empire and that the vast mass of the Orient is still 
asleep. But the whole trend of recent events in the 
Far East makes it clear that the awakening of Asia 
cannot be limited to any one nation. The past failure 



Significance of Waking Asia 197 

of the Chinese to profit by western intercourse must 
be attributed not to any racial inability, but to their 
strong prepossession in favor of their own civilization. 
Under the stress of the necessity of protecting their 
national existence they are showing a remarkable 
facility in learning the lessons that the West has to 
teach. It is now plainly evident that the Chinese mil- 
lions are abandoning their complacent, self-sufficient 
attitude and are gathering their strength in a more 
determined and effective manner than has ever charac- 
terized them in the past. 

That the general awakening in eastern Asia will 
eventually mean a military struggle between the East 
and the West is a possibility about which it is useless 
to speculate. We may be sure, however, that these 
changes now going on in the East will involve radical 
readjustments in our international relations with 
oriental powers. The West has already learned the 
necessity of dealing with Japan as an equal. When 
China has gained sufficient prestige to demand similar 
treatment our old attitude of superiority and conde- 
scension toward the yellow races can be maintained 
only at our peril. Foreign aggression in the Orient 
will then be no longer tolerated. The right of oriental 
nations to govern their own territories will be recog- 
nized as the natural thing. The sorry spectacle of the 
great Chinese nation split up into a number of foreign 
principalities will only be a matter of historical interest. 

It is conceivable that the revolutionary readjustment 
of western relations with the Orient may take place 



198 The Japanese Invasion 

without force of arms. Eastern peoples have too great 
a recognition of the value of trade to wish to drive 
the West out of the East. They will insist on their 
right to rule themselves, but economic necessity will 
insure a ready welcome for foreign capital and will 
make the presence of foreign business men a necessary 
factor in their business and industrial life. 

The world significance of waking Asia must be 
found not so much in a military yellow peril that will 
close the open door in the East, but rather in the in- 
creased stimulus that will be given to emigration from 
the Orient to the West. Up to the present time western 
opposition to oriental immigration has kept back the 
stream of Asiatics that has threatened to pour into the 
more sparsely settled regions of the western world. 
Whenever the Orientals have tried to better their lot 
by sharing in the opportunities to be found in the coun- 
tries dominated by white men, they have met with a 
stern rebuff. Their exclusion thus far has not caused 
serious trouble. With the balance of power in our 
hands, they did not dare to question the justice of 
our decision. 

But with Asia thoroughly awake the problem may 
not be so easily solved. It is not merely a question of 
the oriental nations gaining sufficient military power 
to compel us to adopt a different policy. The point of 
even more vital significance is the fact that an awak- 
ened Orient will have new desires that their country 
cannot satisfy and which will make almost resistless 
the tendency to emigrate to lands that offer better 



Significance of Waking Asia 199 

opportunities. When five hundred milHons of Asiatics 
become filled with the restless spirit that results from 
contact with a higher standard of living, existing 
treaties may prove to be ineffectual barriers to th6 
oriental invasion. 

It is this aspect of the oriental problem that vitally 
concerns the western world. On the one hand, we 
have the sparsely settled countries of the West, with 
their wonderful opportunities for exploitation and 
development; on the other, the constant push of eco- 
nomic forces literally driving the people of the crowded 
East out into the more favored lands where the condi- 
tions of life are not so hard. It is at once evident that 
here exists a situation with which it will be difficult to 
deal. It involves more than the question of an armed 
Orient ready to fight for its honor and for the things 
it may choose to demand. The motive power back of 
the movement is stronger than political force. It is 
nothing less than hunger, the desire for food to sustain 
life and make possible the rearing of their children — 
a fundamental need for the satisfaction of which men 
will stop short not even of death. 

A glance at present conditions in the Far East will 
at once make clear how actively these economic forces 
are at work. Japan is now in a stage of industrial 
transition. The old handicraft system is giving way 
to factories, thus throwing out of employment thou- 
sands of skilled artisans. The rapid development of 
industry has caused a movement of population to cities, 
with all of its attending evils of congestion, improper 



200 The Japanese Invasion 

sanitation, hard working conditions, and low wages. 
These workmen are forbidden by law to try to better 
their condition by organization. They are ground 
under the heel of an industrial despotism that has 
served to increase their wants without giving them an 
adequate chance to satisfy them. The new regime has 
meant a great increase in prices without a correspond- 
ing increase in rates of wages. Modern science has 
greatly lowered the death rate, while the birth rate 
has not been checked. With an annual increase of 
about 700,000 people, competition is becoming so keen 
that many are forced to the wall. The government, 
instead of coming to the rescue of its people, makes 
excessive demands both in military service and in direct 
taxation. The Japanese are in fact the most heavily 
taxed people in the world. 

All this has brought in an era of discontent that at 
times threatens the stability of the government. So 
hard is the struggle for existence of the mass of the 
people that thousands look eagerly for a chance to go 
abroad, where they can make a new start in life. The 
government, in their attempt to guide this movement, 
have sought outlets for their people in Korea and Man- 
churia. Thus far this solution of their problem has 
resulted in failure. The difficulty is that they are 
countries where already live plenty of laborers who 
have even a lower standard of living than the Japanese. 
The only immigrants who can succeed there are those 
with capital to invest in business enterprises. Penni- 
less and unskilled laborers find themselves driven 



Significance of Waking Asia 201 

against worse conditions than they had to face in 
Japan. 

Consequently, the stream of emigration tends to go 
to America, where even the most poverty-stricken 
workman has a fair chance to succeed. Only those 
who have lived in Japan and have come in sympathetic 
touch with the common people can realize how preva- 
lent is this desire to go to America. As is sometimes 
said, America is the land of their dreams, a goal far 
more attractive to them than even the enchanting para- 
dise pictured by popular Buddhism. This strong 
desire to go to America has been kept in check only 
by the strict regulations of the government. If the 
bars were let suddenly down, the emigration to 
America would not be by thousands but by tens of 
thousands. The pressure brought to bear upon the 
government to make this possible can hardly be over- 
estimated. In their statement of their case to America 
they usually assert that the motive back of this move- 
ment is the vindication of their national honor, the 
determination to share in the rights granted to other 
nations. In reality, although the Japanese may not be 
fully conscious of it, the motive force behind it all is 
economic, the elemental desire for a better chance in 
life, a force that may soon be beyond the power of their 
government to control unless impassable barriers are 
erected abroad. 

When we turn to China we see a situation as yet 
less acute but fraught with still greater consequences 
because of its vast population and the extent of its 



202 The Japanese Invasion 

territory. The Chinese people, who outnumber us 
five to one, are facing all the evils of overpopulation. 
Abject need has taught them how to exist on the low- 
est possible scale of living. Very few Americans 
realize what a narrow margin separates the masses 
of the Chinese from starvation. Dr. Ross gives this 
vivid picture of the poverty of the common people : 

Though the farmer thriftily combs his harvest field, 
every foot of the short stubble is gone over again by poor 
women and children, who are content if in a day's glean- 
ing they can gather a handful of wheat heads to keep 
them alive the morrow. On the Hongkong water 
front the path of the coolies carrying produce between 
warehouse and junk is lined with tattered women, most 
of them with a baby on the back. Where bags of beans or 
rice are in transit a dozen wait with basket and brush to 
sweep up the grains dropped from the sacks, while others 
run by the bearer, if his sack leaks a little, to catch the 
particles as they fall. Where sugar is being unloaded, a 
mob of gleaners swarm upon the lighter the moment the 
last sack leaves and eagerly scrape from the gangplank 
and the deck the sugar mixed with dirt that for two hours 
has been trampled into a muck by the bare feet of two 
score coolies trotting back and forth across a dusty road.^ 

In the efforts of the people to wring a living for them- 
selves out of the soil, the arable portions of China are 
tilled like a garden. Intensive agriculture is seen there at 
its best. Every natural resource, no matter how trifling, 
is made to serve its purpose. Weeds and leaves of 
trees are carefully gathered for fuel. Almost all kinds 

1 Ross, E. A., The Changing Chinese, p. 80. 



Significance of Waking Asia 203 

of flesh are used for food. Silkworms are eaten after 
they have produced their silk. Domestic animals that 
have died a natural death find their way to the larder. 
Rats and cats and dogs are on sale in the meat markets. 
Even entrails are not disdained as an article of diet. 
In order to keep themselves from starving, the coolie 
classes must work far beyond their strength. The 
chair-bearers, ricksha men, and treadmill coolies wear 
themselves out in a few years. Their children while 
yet too young must take their places and aid in the 
struggle for food. 

In the midst of an economic situation like this, where 
so many millions live perilously near the poverty line, 
the vanguard of western civilization is beginning to 
exert considerable influence. It is already having some 
effect on the building up of industry, and in so far 
as it is able to do this, the productive power of the 
nation is increased and the lot of the people will be 
made more endurable. 

But there will follow other significant consequences, 
some of which are seldom given sufficient considera- 
tion. Among these is the decreased mortality which 
will come about through the efforts of modern medical 
science. At present the mortality among infants is 
appalling. Statistics are not available for whole 
China, but foreign physicians have stated that in the 
particular cities with which they were familiar eighty- 
five per cent of the children die before the end of the 
second year. The death rate in China is estimated at 
about fifty-five per thousand. In modernized Japan, 



204 '^^^ Japanese Invasion 

where the benefits of medical science are now put 
within reach of nearly all the people, they have lowered 
the death rate to twenty per thousand. It is reason- 
able to suppose that similar results will be attained in 
China as soon as the government enforces laws of 
sanitation and makes possible the training of native 
physicians in sufficient numbers to fight successfully 
against disease. Dr. Ross says further: 

But to lower the birth rate in equal degree, that, alas, is 
quite another matter. The factors responsible for the 
present fecundity of fifty to sixty per thousand — three 
times that of the American stock, and nowhere matched 
in the white man's world, unless it be in certain districts 
in Russia and certain parishes in French Canada — will 
not yield so readily. It may easily take the rest of this 
century to overcome ancestor worship, early marriage, the 
passion for big families, and the inferior position of the 
wife. For at least a generation or two China will pro- 
duce rapidly in the oriental way people who will die off 
slowly in the occidental way. When the death rate has 
been planed down to twenty, the birth rate will still be 
more than double, and numbers will be growing at the 
rate of over two per cent a year. Even with the aid of a 
scientific agriculture it is, of course, impossible to make 
the crops of China feed such an increase. It must emi- 
grate or starve. It is the outward thrust of surplus Jap- 
anese that is today producing dramatic political results in 
Korea and Manchuria. In forty or fifty years there will 
come an outward thrust of surplus Chinese on ten times 
this scale. With a third of the adults able to read and 
with daily newspapers thrilling the remotest village with 
tidings of the great world, eighteen provinces will be 
pouring forth emigrants instead of two. To Mexico, 



Significance of Waking Asia 205 

Central and South America, southwestern Asia, Asia 
Minor, Africa, and even old Europe, the black-haired 
bread seekers will stream, and then "What shall we do 
with the Chinese ? " from being in turn a Calif ornian, an 
Australian, a Canadian, and a South African question, 
will become a world question.^ 

Another important effect of contact with western 
civilization, already mentioned in the foregoing quota- 
tion, is the development of means of communication 
which will make possible better mobilization of the 
Chinese millions. At present, as far as the masses of 
the people are concerned, they are far removed from 
western influences. Their illiteracy prevents them 
from following the news of the world in the news- 
paper press. Lack of railways and poor wagon roads 
limit lines of travel largely to navigable rivers. Moving 
from place to place in China is a serious matter, in- 
volving much time and inconvenience as well as 
expense. The millions in interior China know little 
of the West and possess no facilities to leave their 
country if they so desired. 

All this will be changed when public schools make 
possible the wide circulation of newspapers and when 
railways connect the large cities throughout the dif- 
ferent provinces. The people then not only will have 
a wider vision of the world, but will find it easily 
possible to go abroad. The masses will feel stirring 
within them a growing discontent with their lot in life. 
Contact with higher standards of living will arouse 

^ The Changing Chinese, p. i lO. 



2o6 The Japanese Invasion 

within them desires beyond their power to satisfy. It 
is out of situations like this that great migrations arise. 
Conditions in the Far East indicate that China will 
soon be ripe for such a movement. When it begins, 
western civilization will be put to a severe test either 
in stemming the tide or in assimilating the hordes from 
the Orient. 

J' It is thus evident that this marvelous westernization 
of the Orient, in which we take much pride, is putting 
into motion forces which may soon be beyond our 
power to control. Some have foreseen more or less 
clearly the trend of affairs in the Far East and have 
urged that while yet there is time our Pacific coast be 
made a racial frontier where a determined stand shall 
be taken against the oriental immigrant invasion. To 
many, such an attitude seems born in a spirit of provin- 
cialism and is unworthy of a hospitable nation like 
ours. Unfortunately, those who have been most active 
in their efforts to promote oriental interests in Amer- 
ica have seemingly been blind to the significance of 
waking Asia. Secure in their belief that America is 
strong enough to dominate any situation that may 
arise, they have advocated a temporizing policy which 
may ultimately involve us in more serious complica- 
tions as the Orient increases in strength. 

The problem, moreover, is one that will not respond 
readily to diplomatic agreements. The Japanese gov- 
ernment, with the best intentions in the world toward 
America, cannot ignore the fundamental conditions in 
their country which determine the trend of their 



Significance of Waking Asia 207 

national policies. For at least another generation, 
until the period of the industrial transition in Japan 
is safely past, the relentless pressure of economic forces 
must play a predominant part in Japan's international 
relations. The fact that their imperialistic policy of 
expansion rests on what seems to be stern necessity, 
and not entirely upon their oft-mentioned determina- 
tion to secure equal rights abroad, should give us suffi- 
cient assurance of their intention to carry it out in the 
face of all obstacles. 

It is very clear even to the superficial observer that 
the whole Orient is now passing through a period of 
transition and adjustment which produces suffering 
and discontent among vast numbers of their people. 
The problems their governments face are many and 
serious. In their time of stress they naturally look to 
the West for assistance. Where we, as well as they, 
make a mistake, is in supposing that the open-door 
policy on our part would be an important step in im- 
proving their situation. This, at its best, would only 
give temporary relief and would not touch the root of 
their trouble. In the experience of European countries, 
emigration has been for them a loss rather than a gain. 
The ultimate welfare of the Orient depends not on its 
right to send emigrants abroad. Its progress will best 
be furthered by removing the conditions that cause 
emigration. This, of course, cannot be done at once. 
It will mean a slow and painful process of industrial 
development. Wisely directed efforts must be made 
along the line of birth control. The standard of living 



2o8 The Japanese Invasion 

must be raised until the mass of the people can live in 
reasonable comfort. When all this is attained, the 
immigration problem will no longer be an important 
issue, and the open-door policy which has always been 
one of the ideals of our nation can be fully carried 
out with Asia as well as Europe. 

While such a solution of the problem is much to be 
wished for, we have by no means any assurance that it 
will be brought to pass within the immediate future. 
On the contrary, all the indications in the Orient seem 
to point in a different direction. Emigration, to the 
eastern peoples, seems to offer a quicker and more 
available escape from their economic burdens than does 
the more fundamental process of developing the re- 
sources of their country. It is too much to expect that 
the Orientals will exercise more restraint about emigra- 
tion than have the people of Europe. The Japanese 
and the Chinese feel strongly that they must gain the 
right of emigration to the West. Their national pol- 
icies are, of course, constructed with this desire in view, 
and while temporarily this aspect of them is held in 
abeyance it has by no means been fundamentally 
changed. They are simply waiting for a more favor- 
able opportunity to press their demands. 

We must bear in mind that the Orient will not always 
come to us in the attitude of a suppliant. The Orientals 
feel deeply that their cause is righteous, and their hands 
are strengthened by the consciousness of growing 
power. The West has a thousand times over in its 
aggressions and insults given the East good and suf- 



Significance of Waking Asia 209 

ficient cause for war. It is to be hoped that the issue 
will be worked out along peaceful lines. Whether it 
will or not depends upon our skill in handling the situ- 
ation and upon the prestige that our country possesses 
because of its fighting strength. No matter how much 
we may wish to escape it, the issue is thrust upon us. 
America is the frontier where must meet the East and 
the West, and upon the result of this meeting hinge 
vast consequences for the whole world. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The following lists, while by no means exhaustive, 
include the most representative books and articles 
bearing on the subject. 

BOOKS 

Bailey, T. P. Race Orthodoxy in the South. Neale Pub- 
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Bennett, J. E, Japan's Message to America: A Reply. San 
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Blakeslee, G. H., ed. Japan and Japanese- American Rela- 
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Collier, Price. The West in the East. Duckworth & Co., 
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Commons, J. R. Races and Immigrants in America. The 
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Conklin, E. G. Heredity and Environment in the Develop- 
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CooLiDGE, A. C. The United States as a World-Power. The 
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Fairchild, H. p. Immigration, a World Movement, and Its 
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211 



212 The Japanese Invasion 



GuLicK, S. L. Evolution of the Japanese, Social and Psychic. 

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Masaoka, N., ed. Japan to America. (A symposium of 

papers by leaders of thought in Japan.) G. P. Putnam's 

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Mecklin, J. M. Democracy and Race Friction: A Study in 

Social Ethics. The Macmillan Company, New York, 

1914; PP- 273. 
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MiTFORD, E. B. Japan's Inheritance. Dodd, Mead & Com- 
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Murdoch, J. A History of Japan during Century of Early 
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NuTTALL, Z. Earliest Historical Relations between Mexico 
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Okuma, Count. Fifty Years of New Japan. Smith, Elder 
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Soyeda, J. A Survey of the Japanese Question in California. 
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214 The Japanese Invasion 



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15: 10041-44 (1908). 
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INDEX 



INDEX 

Agriculture, Japanese immigrants in, 121. 

Agricultural class in Japan, 102 ff. 

American attitude of superiority, 196. 

American friendliness for Japanese, 70. 

American government. Attitude toward Japan of, 72. 

Anti-foreign articles in Japanese press, 31. 

Anti- Japanese Convention, 43. 

Aoki, Viscount, Marriage of, 157. 

Asiatic immigration, World significance of, 198. 

Assimilation of Japanese, 96 fif., no, in. 

Atkinson, J. L., on western customs in Japan, 2^. 

Baelz, on Eurasian children in Japan, 164. 
Bailey, T. P., analysis of race prejudice, 70. 
Bennett, J. E., on Japanese as servants, 114. 
Boas, Franz, on racial differences, 98. 
Bramhall, J. T., on employers' attitude toward Japanese, 81. 
Brinkley, Captain, on attitude of medieval Japan toward foreign- 
ers, 16 ; on health of Eurasian children, 165. 
British Columbia, Japanese schools in, 144. 
Brown, A. M., on Japanese industry, 74. 
Bryan, W. J., conference with Ambassador Chinda, 73. 
Buddhist missions among Japanese in America, 143. 
Business associations, types of, 135. 

California, Alien land law, 57; expression of friendship for 
Japan by colleges of, ^(i\ prejudice against Japanese in, 82-84. 

Cary, Otis, on expulsion of Christians from Japan, 17. 

Chicago, Japanese organizations in, 141 ; prejudice against Jap- 
anese in, 109. 

China, death rate in, 203; effects of western civilization on, 203; 
Japan's victory over, 37; over population in, 202; poverty 
in, 202. 

Chinese, attitude of superiority, 99; changed attitude toward 
western civilization, 197. 

Chinese immigration, opposition to, 38. 

227 



228 Index 



Chinese immigrants, difference between Japanese and, 38; soli- 
darity of, 108. 
Christian Embassy to Japan, 77. 
Christian mission work for Japanese, 142. 
Clement, E. W., on Christianity in Japan, 26. 
Colored races, problem of mingling of white and, 184. 
Congress, Japanese Embassy in, 12. 
Conklin, E. G., on amalgamation of races, 173. 
Contractors, efficiency of Japanese, 132. 
Cooperative housekeeping among Japanese immigrants, 133. 

Davis, H., on shipwrecked Japanese, 3. 

De Forest, J. H., on Japanese attitude toward the west, 24; moral 

greatness of the Japanese, 71. 
Domestic servants, Japanese as, 112 ff.; in Japan, 120. 
Dunn, A., on economic aspects of Japanese problem, 80. 
Dutch influence on Japan, 19. 

Economic aspect of Japanese problem, 80, 181, 182. 
Economic conditions, adaptability of Japanese to American, 126. 
Economic forces back of Oriental immigration problem, 206. 
Embassy from Japan to America, 5 ff. 
English, Japanese immigrants knowledge of, 104. 
European immigration, American attitude toward, 175, 176; dif- 
ferences between Oriental immigration and, 176, 177. 
Europeanization of society in Japan, 26. 
Exclusion, Japan's policy of, 3, 17. 
Extra-territoriality in Japan, 21. 

Farnham, M. H., on loyalty of Japanese servants, 120. 
Federal Council of Churches of Christ, 76. 
Foreign customs in Japan, 100, 

"Gang" system of employment, 130. 

"Gentlemen's Agreement," 48. 

Gulick, S. L., on assimilation of the Japanese, 98; inadvisability 
of intermarriage, 162-3 ; Japanese use of newspaper press, 
146; necessity of restricted immigration, 186; oriental atti- 
tude toward the west, 24, 29; proposed solution of immigra- 
tion problem, 186, 187. 

Hawaii, Japanese laborers in, 41. 

Hawks, F. L., on Perry's expedition to Japan, 4. 

Hearn, Lafcadio, on difficulties of the Japanese language, 95. 



Index 229 



Holman, C V., on prejudice against Japanese, 85. 
Houston, Japanese in, 124. 

Ichihashi, Y., on occupations of Japanese immigrants, 102 ; west- 
ern dislike of Japan, 34, 35. 

Immigrants, occupation of Japanese, 51. 

Immigration, act regulating Japanese, 47; present regulations of 
Japanese, 49 ; proposed amendment to present law, 186. 

Immorality of Japanese women, 140. 

India, Eurasians in, 149. 

Industrial transition in Japan, 199. 

Intermarriage, examples in Japan of, I59ff. ; examples of Jap- 
anese-American families in America, 168 flf. ; frequency in 
America, 167; objections to, 171-72; prejudice against, 152 ff. 

Japanese, appearance and clothing of, 10; associations in Amer- 
ica, 137 ff. ; children in America, 51 ; hostility toward America, 
61; indirectness of, 115; number of arrivals each year, 50; 
pride and conceit, 37 ; schools in America, 144 ; skill in agri- 
culture, 75; their favorable attitude toward western civiliza- 
tion, 99; vernacular press in America, 146. 

Japanese attitude. Misconceptions of, 30. 

Japanese immigration, crux of problem, 60, 177 ; danger of unre- 
stricted, 185. 

Japanese immigrants, attitude of employers toward, 81 ; language 
difficulties, 104; occupations of, 102; ownership of land, 124. 

Japanese menace, 91, 92. 

Japanese problem, its complex nature, 81. 

Japanese quarters in western cities, 106. 

Jewish reaction to race prejudice, 192. 

Kawakami, K,, on Japanese association with Americans, 107; 
Japanese attitude toward the west, 25 ; Japanese as farm 
laborers, 122 ; standard of living of Japanese immigrants, 127. 

Kennan, G., on Japan's policy of exclusion, 3; segregation of 
Japanese pupils, 46. 

Kikuchi, Baron, on western learning in Japan, 19. 

Kinnosuke, A., on Japanese attitude toward America, 55. 

Kobe, M., on California anti-Japanese movement, 59. 

Korea, Japanese emigration to, 200. 

Labor conditions in Japan, 200. 

Ladd, G. T., on Japanese attitude toward the west, 28. 



230 Index 



Lawton, on problem of intermarriage, 155. 

Lowell, Percival, on idiosyncrasies of the Japanese, 95. 

Loyalty of the Japanese, 120. 

MacCauley, C, on economic aspect of Japanese problem, 181. 

MacGowan, on Japanese attitude toward foreigners, 21. 

Markino, Y., on his experience in San Francisco, 40. 

Marriage of Japanese immigrants, 139. 

Mexico, Japanese in, i. 

McLaughlin, A., on assimilation of the Japanese, 97. 

Michigan, opposition to Japanese in, 86. 

Mikami, K., on Japanese immigrants' knowledge of English, 105. 

Millis, H. A., on necessity of restriction of immigration, 185. 

Missionaries, attitude toward Japanese, 69; non-assimilation of, 
93; social relations between Japanese and, no. 

Murdock, J., on early Portuguese discoveries as Christian propa- 
gandists, 18; Roman Catholics in Japan, 2. 

Mutual benefit societies, 135. 

Nagai, R., on Japanese dislike of western domination, 58. 

Negroes, Japanese dislike of, 125. 

Newspapers, Sensational character of Japanese, 32. 

New York, Japanese association in, 140 ; Japanese Embassy in, 7. 

Nitobe, I., on English language in Japan, loi ; Japanese inter- 
course with America, 4 ; occupations of Japanese immigrants, 
113; standard of living in Japan, 128. 

Noguchi, Yone, on his opinion of the West, 30. 

Nuttall, Z., on Japan's relation with Mexico, 2. 

Occupation of Japanese immigrants, 112. 

Okuma, Marquis, on American treatment of Japanese, 54. 

Omori, Dr. T., attacked in San Francisco, 46.- 

Organization of Japanese labor, 132. 

Organizations, Japanese success in maintaining, 148. 

Otani, K., on lack of education of Japanese immigrants, 65. 

Ownership of land by Japanese immigrants, 124. 

Park, R. E., on racial assimilation, 178. 

Perry, Commodore, 4. 

Persecution of Christians in Japan, 17. 

Philadelphia, Japanese Embassy in, 9, 13, 

Philippines, Japanese in the, i. 

" Picture bride " movement, 138. 



^____ Index ^31 

Portuguese in Japan, 16. 

Prefectural clubs, 136. 

Prejudice of Japanese against the West, 19. 

Producers' associations, 134. 

Race prejudice, against orientals, 78, 189; Bailey's analysis of, 69; 
in American colleges, 87 ; its tendency to break down, 191. 

Racial factors, importance of, 190. 

Reaction against foreign customs, 27. 

Religious work among Japanese immigrants, 142. 

Roberts, P., on cooperative housekeeping among Japanese immi- 
grants, 133. 

Roman Catholics in Japan, 2. 

Roosevelt, opposition to exclusion movement, 45; restriction of 
Japanese immigrants, 52. 

Ross, E. A., on birth rate in China, 204 ; poverty in China, 202. 

Rowell, C. H., on danger of yellow invasion, 78, 79. 

San Francisco, Japanese Embassy in, 5 ; opposition to Japanese in, 

40, 42. 
Segregation, in Japanese quarters, 106; of Japanese pupils, 43, 

45,46. 
Simons, S. E., on non-assimilation of Chinese immigrants, 108. 
Solidarity of Japanese immigrants, 147. 
Soyeda, J., on Japanese problem, 59, 63. 
Spencer, Herbert, on intermarriage, 150. 
Standard of living in Japan, 103, 104, 126. 
Suspicion of Japan, American attitude of, 89 ff. 
Suyehiro, S., on Japanese demand for equal rights, 67. 

Thomas, W. I., on racial differences, 97; reasons for changed 

attitude toward Japan, 36. 
Trade guilds, 135, 136. 
Trade unions, Japanese excluded from, 83. 
Treaties, between America and Japan, 21 ; revision of, 27. 

University of Chicago, Japanese students in, 86. 

Washington, Japanese Embassy in, 5. 

Wilson, President, Letter on attitude toward Japan, 73. 

Woehlke, W. V., on non-assimilation of orientals, 79. 

Y. M. C. A., attitude toward Japanese, 82, 83. 
Yoshida, on rural Japanese emigrants, 103. 



